Heartwired
by DezoPenguin
Summary: Phantasy Star Online. It's looking like an unhappy Valentine's Day when hunters Lyon and Ryland enter into the world of virtual reality dating in search of a missing girl and find the trail leading places they never expected.
1. Chapter 1

"You came."

The young woman looked at him curiously.

"We agreed to this meeting, didn't we?"

He grinned, embarrassed. Terence Nyle might have been over thirty, but he felt himself reacting like a schoolboy.

"Yes, but...I scarcely dared hope that--" He winced. What a silly line, straight out of a historical romance broadcast! Nyle couldn't believe he was acting this way, so unsure of himself. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I mean, this is all like a dream. I keep expecting to wake up and find that I'd imagined it all. Rina..."

The wind plucked at the hem of her dress, making it swirl and ripple around her calves. Her long rose-pink hair flowed across caramel-colored shoulders. Her eyes were wide and as blue as the sky above. Her lips, brushed the same pink as her hair, curved upwards in a warm smile.

"That's so sweet, Terence," she told him.

"I've never felt this way about anyone else before," he said, taking her hands in his. "I never imagined that it was possible. You read about love, you think you understand it, but you never really can, not until it strikes for the first time."

"I know exactly what you mean. These moments we spend together...they make me feel so alive, so free."

"Is that why you always like to have our dates outdoors?" he asked. "Because of freedom?"

She nodded.

"That's exactly right! Every day is always the same, trapped within the four corners of the world. I love to get out, to feel the wind in my hair, see the clouds drift across the sky..." Rina stepped closer and leaned her head up against his chest. "With you, though, Terence, it doesn't matter. I could be locked away in a cell and as long as you were there my heart would be flying free."

He put his arms around her, holding her slim body against his own. Nyle knew just what she meant. His job was as dry as dust, his days blending into one another so that the Net-broadcast schedules were the only way to tell one from the next.

With Rina everything was different. Better. She filled a void in him that he hadn't even recognized was there, or at least the depth of it.

She leaned up and kissed him then, just a quick peck on the lips, then slipped free.

"Come on, Terence; the food is getting cold."

Rina took him by the hand and led him over to the cliffside where their picnic blanket was laid out. They sat next to one another, hips pressed together, so they could look out over the ocean where the sun sparkled off the water and white sea birds wheeled and turned with occasional cries to one another.

The meal was barely that, fruit and cheese and tiny bite-sized delicacies which they fed one another, laughing and talking about nothing in particular, sharing a bottle of an exotic sparkling wine that gleamed the same color as Rina's hair, all of it punctuated with kisses that grew steadily warmer and more lingering as the meal went on. Soft and sweet brushings of their lips turned to something hot and fierce that left Nyle trembling when they broke off. Jagged sparks seemed to dance along his nerves.

"I...need you," Rina whispered. Her eyes were wide and shining.

"I love you." He reached for her. "I want to see more of you, more than just th--" She cut him off, pressing a finger to his lips.

"Later. Tell me after." Her fingers began to play with the buttons of his tunic, undoing one after another. She slid one delicate-fingered hand beneath, began to play it across his bare chest, and he felt his nerves jolt again.

"Now, let's just see what..." Rina purred, pushing the shirt off him, then suddenly jerked back in alarm and spun her head to her left.

"Oh, no! They've found me--I have to hurry!"

"Rina? What is it?"

"I love you, Terence."

The outline of her body suddenly filled with a cloud of static that gave off hissing, crackling pops, then tore itself apart with a flash of light.

A moment later the entire world shattered to pieces, leaving Nyle once again in the living room, the sharp prick of the wires beneath his skin the only ghost of Rina's presence.

-X X X-

"We'd been dating for three weeks," Nyle explained. Weinstine Co. Android Type L/Y-906 (Lyon to her friends) studied his face. He was the two hunters' client, and the look of bewildered loss boded well for his truthfulness. She hated when the clients lied. "She...I loved her," he said simply. "She was the best thing that ever happened to me."

Lyon's partner, Donovan Ryland, tapped his fingertips together as he absorbed the details.

"Three weeks," he said, "but you didn't know her full name, address, or occupation?"

Nyle shook his head.

"Maybe I'd better start at the beginning. Please, have a seat."

Ryland sat down on Nyle's couch and after a moment of thought Lyon joined him. It didn't matter to her, but following social mannerisms made organics more comfortable around her. The orange-and-black RAcaseal was, after all, a full-fledged person and a Hunter's Guild member, not a tool. Their client took the seat opposite them across the transparent blue coffee table.

"I work as a logistics clerk for the Vise Corporation. It's not what you'd call an exciting and thrilling position. That's one reason I accepted the transfer to _Pioneer 2_. I thought that coming to the planet Ragol to help found a new colony would put excitement in my life. When the _Pioneer 1_ settlement was destroyed and the landing put on hold, that changed. I know you hunters have had all the excitement you could want investigating the surface, but the rest of us are essentially stuck here indefinitely."

That was true enough. Just as _Pioneer 2_ had completed its two-year journey to Ragol and was about to open contact with the initial mission, a strange explosion had engulfed the colony and apparently consumed it. With enraged animals, rogue bioweapons, mutated monsters, crazed robots, government conspiracies, and forces that seemed literally demonic on the loose, the Administration had put off the landing, so that the thirty thousand colonists remained in the city that had been their home for the past two years.

"I realized," Nyle continued, "that I couldn't just wait for life to come to me, but had to go out and live. Coral, _Pioneer 2_, or Ragol, it's all the same--_where_ I am isn't the problem, but the choices I made for myself in my daily life.

"So I consulted a dating service."

Lyon's emotional program dictated that she laugh at Nyle's anticlimax, but she recognized the inappropriateness of the response and overrode it, the propriety of a hunter not mocking her client and the rudeness of the act generally combining to weight her decision-making algorithm.

"My first match..." He shrugged. "We didn't hit it off. Rina was my second match, and there was a connection between us at once. I could talk about anything with her, no matter how silly. After the first couple of dates, we knew we wanted to concentrate exclusively on each other. I'd decided that I wanted to meet her in real life."

Ryland held up a hand.

"Wait a moment. In 'real life'? What do you mean?"

"The service arranges all initial meetings virtually, in online space. It's only natural," Nyle added defensively. "People are nervous enough on a first date, especially when they've been fixed up. It helps them stay safe. And there's no public scenes, no third parties to embarrass yourself in front of. You can pick any kind of date you like--Rina always liked being outdoors, for example. But you don't have to reveal anything about yourself other than your name if you don't want to."

"And Rina didn't want to," Ryland said. "How can you fall in love with someone when you don't know anything about them?"

Lyon wasn't surprised at her partner's disbelief. Ryland was a Force, and like a lot of human Forces he played up the "wizard" tradition to the hilt, from the ornate robes that were his work uniform to the square-rimmed glasses he wore instead of in-eye lenses. For all that he used the Net daily like anyone else, he wouldn't consider it a proper venue for romance. Nyle, though, defended his feelings instantly.

"You don't fall in love with a person because of what their name is or their job or how they wear their hair! It's values, likes, dislikes, personality, the core of who they are, and that's all you see in virtual reality dating. You don't get distracted by irrelevant details!"

Lyon decided to change the subject. The point was an interesting one in psychology and culture but completely irrelevant to the job. Besides which, if Ryland and Nyle got in enough of a fight they might get fired, and Lyon had her eye on a fancy partisan-style weapon she'd seen at one of the weapons shops.

"I would think that fraud would be a problem," she noted. "If you only knew her by the information she gave to you..."

Nyle nodded at her.

"Yes, that's a problem on-line, but that's why I went to a service and not just a Net chat room. They verify our personal data with the citizen database and match people with qualities likely to mesh with one another."

"I see. This dating service, then, would be the first place to check."

"I did call them, but they wouldn't give out Rina's personal data."

"Privacy would be important," Ryland agreed grudgingly.

"But she's in trouble! That's why I went to the Guild, as a last resort."

Ryland frowned. Lyon knew that frown; it was the one he got when he was being told didn't dovetail with the known facts.

"Tell us how you know that Rina is in trouble," he asked slowly.

"It happened during our last date," Nyle said. "Like I said, I'd decided that I wanted to get to know her in real life, so I thought I'd ask her after our picnic." He took them through the story of their first date, finishing with Rina's sudden disappearance from the virtual reality program. By the time he'd finished, he was wide-eyed and hysterical.

"Relax, Mr. Nyle," Lyon advised. "We need to learn every detail if we are going to be able to help." She laid a hand on his shoulder in a reassuring manner, though not everyone accepted an android's touch in that way. "Try to calm down, for her sake."

The client took a couple of deep breaths and seemed to regain some part of his composure, though he continued to tremble. By comparison, Ryland was like ice.

"In your place, Mr. Nyle, I'd have contacted the military police. They'd have the ability to override the privacy seals on the dating service's files."

"They...they wouldn't believe me, just like you. They'd have thought Rina just wanted to break it off with me."

"In that case, she would have just done so, without the melodrama of an apparent disappearance. If the milipol thought you'd made the story up, they could just replay the datatrack from the date to verify you were telling the truth; the dating service would still have the file. So, why not go to the police, Mr. Nyle?" Ryland folded his arms across his chest.

Nyle licked his lips, the shaking increasing. "I...I..."

"Don't bother; you've already told me. Conventional VR sets include visual and audio stimulus; that's easy. The sense of touch is possible, too, with a bodysuit laced with reflex points; it's expensive but not impossible. But there's no commercially available virtual reality made that stimulates smell and taste."

Lyon hadn't noticed that, but of course it was correct. The Lab's VR simulator could impact all five senses, but that used advanced Photon matter-replication technology in realspace to generate artificial environments. Unless the Lab was running the dating service as part of a sociocultural experiment--unlikely, as Nyle would have had to go to the VR system's transporter to enter the virtual environment--there was only one way his story could be true, which she was convinced was the case.

She let Ryland say it, since he'd thought of it first.

"Your 'dates' weren't using VR. They were using direct neural stimulation. You were hotwiring."

"I...I..."

"That's why you couldn't go to the police," snapped the Force, his red hair like a flaming aura of anger around his head. "Hotwiring is illegal, and you know that sooner or later it would come out in the investigation--not that you didn't try to hide it anyway. Is that more or less it?"

Nyle sighed and buried his face in his hands.

"Yes, it is. But it's not just me! Sure, I was scared of being arrested, but it's Rina, too. She did the same things I did. I didn't want to get her in trouble. The whole point is to help her!"

"Hotwiring is dangerous," Lyon pointed out. "The equipment is an imperfect meld of electrical and Photon technologies and invariably results in brain damage to habitual users. Why would you do something like that?"

"It...the dating service dropped a few hints when I signed up. They said it was the next best thing to being with your date in person! Even better in a way, since we could go places and do things that we can't in real life. You know how much Rina liked the outdoors, but here on _Pioneer 2_ even the outside is still inside some part of the spaceship. Instead of an artificial park, we could have a picnic in the mountains of Gal De Val Island!"

"With or without firebreathing monkeys?" Ryland murmured.

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry."

"Look, I know that maybe we shouldn't have done what we did, but I really do love Rina, more than I imagined I could ever love anyone. She's everything I ever hoped to find, and she's in some kind of danger. It's been two days since she vanished, and I haven't heard anything from her in that time. You have to find her and help her, _please_."

Ryland glanced at Lyon, silently asking her opinion.

"Hunters enjoy complete extraterritoriality within the Guild. While in the course of a Guild Quest, we are under no obligation to report offenses to the civilian or military authorities and cannot be forced to testify in any tribunal to what we observe. If Mr. Nyle's girlfriend is actually in danger, then we should try to help. Rescuing damsels in distress is a very traditional hunter job, you know."

"All right, Mr. Nyle, you heard her," Ryland said. "Let's have all the details you can give up, starting with the name, Net address, and if they have one, physical location of that dating service. I'd really like to meet the person who decided that electronic drugs were a natural pairing with romance."


	2. Chapter 2

"Do you realize that there were seventeen dating services opened on _Pioneer 2_ in the last four months, Ryland?" Lyon asked as their aerocar smoothly followed a traffic channel that wove among the city buildings. Even though aerial traffic was especially logical in the spaceship--the limited space all but demanded that the architects think in three dimensions--it always made the android think of a fish swimming among the decorations in its bowl. She supposed she could have performed a block-and-override on the association, but her personality matrix was designed to make these kind of links and she supposed there was a point to it.

Organics tended to think in metaphors, after all, so it was probably adaptive.

"It's probably like Nyle told us," Ryland said. "After the Olga incident it became pretty clear that we wouldn't be landing anytime soon, so people started to realize that they needed to get on with living their lives. Those without families would want to connect themselves to other people."

Lyon nodded, making the foxtail-like "hair" structure on her head bob.

"Is your conflict with our client's methodology for seeking love going to interfere with the job?"

He looked up at her.

"While it's obvious that you have your own preferences, as each individual does," she continued, "Nyle was essentially correct. Love is about linking the minds and emotions of two people. Personal, physical contact is important for the supporting incidents--hugging, touching, and so on--as well as the sexual aspect, but it isn't necessary or even primary. With current technology, people can communicate freely with one another without being physically present. There's no reason to keep them from falling in love."

"'Communicate freely'? You're sounding like Nol, now. Is hotwiring part of that technology?"

Lyon shook her head, one of the many nonverbal mannerisms she was programmed to use so she herself could communicate more freely. The addition of a physical gesture implied stronger emphasis than merely saying no.

"Of course not. It's a dangerous and self-destructive activity." Ordinarily she'd have yanked Ryland's chain over the fact that it was something only organics did, but serious discussions weren't the time for teasing. "Though I have to admit that this is a fairly creative use for it. I've only heard of hotwiring sessions that give a single person a programmed fantasy."

"That's funny; to me it seems completely natural. Remote dating seems one step removed from a fantasy, anyway, so why not take the step of generating one?"

"Maybe that's why you thought of it first."

"Maybe."

"I wonder if that shaking Nyle's doing is from fear, or from first-stage wireburn."

"If he's only been hotwiring for three weeks on dates, he's probably just afraid for Rina, but who knows if he's telling the truth? He could have had the habit before that. Do you think it matters?"

"Not to the case. It's just...well, it's hard to imagine a wirehead having a future with someone."

Ryland broke into a big grin.

"You electric softy, you. You're rooting for a save-the-girl, happily-ever-after ending, aren't you?"

"It's probably just because it's almost Valentine's Day," Lyon grumbled, embarrassed. "My emotional subroutines are being corrupted by all the hearts and flowers."

"You ought to retrofit your carapace to pink, Cupid."

Lyon flipped Ryland's ponytail around his head so that the end tickled his nose. The Force sneezed, nearly losing his glasses in the process.

"I probably deserved that," he decided with a sigh.

"Of course you did. My decision-making algorithm is in perfect working order."

"From your point of view..." He paused, then looked at her curiously. "Lyon, are you able to love?"

"Of course. I'm a top-of-the-line model. My emotional capacity allows for any kind of social relationship, including friendship and love. Although...I'm not sure if what I feel would be exactly what you mean."

"How so?"

"It has to do with how my mind is structured. Since I don't have a subconscious, my emotions all exist on the conscious level. It takes a lot of the mystery out of things if I'm able to tell you that rather than thinking I'm falling for someone, the way an organic would, that instead I have a B-rank romantic interest and that if he brings me my favorite flowers without asking what they are there's an 18.37-percent chance of an upgrade to A. That excessive level of self-awareness can't help but influence the way _I_ act towards those I love."

"That's kind of scary."

"Personally, I think it's scary that you _can't_ examine your own mental functions. I wouldn't want a black-box emotional system like the experimental one Dr. Montague created for Elenor. A subconscious mind...it's like being hacked by your own brain!"

Ryland looked at her strangely.

"I _hate_ it when you talk like that. Thinking about it always leaves me feeling creepy."

"You can't deny it would be a lot easier if you could examine all of your own personality, emotional state, and decision-making process, then run diagnostics on it to make sure it was functioning properly."

"Think of all the poor psychotherapists who'd have to find new jobs. And on that note, we're here."

Ryland docked the aerocar in a parking bay. Forever Dreams Dating Service was part of a commercial shopping arcade on the outside of a skyscraper, about two-thirds of the way up. The transparent safety barrier to their left showed an excellent view of the city, while storefronts marched along on the right.

"It all seems so normal," Lyon commented. "I'd expect someplace that runs a hotwire server to be in some Downtown hole, not a typical commercial district next to an interior-furnishings store. Though I suppose that's why it _is_ here."

"Plus, who'd trust a store owner who can't even get out of Downtown to fix them up?"

The hunters went into the dating service. The reception area was small but airy. A perky young Newman with bright blue hair framing her elongated ears sat behind the U-shaped desk.

"Welcome to Forever Dreams, where we bring hearts together!" she chirped. "How may I help you?"

"We'd like to speak to the manager."

"Do you have an appointment?"

"I'm afraid not," Ryland said.

"Oh, I'm sorry; Ms. Perrin is a very busy woman. She does have an opening on--"

"We'd prefer to see her now."

"As I just said--"

"We're from the Hunter's Guild and we represent someone who has a complaint."

The clerk glanced from one hunter to the other, and Lyon took the opportunity to back up Ryland's words by giving the clerk her patented "android stare." Since her eyes were blank blue lights rather than simulated normal eyes, they tended to look alien and threatening when she fixed them unwaveringly on an organic. Between the two of them, there were all sorts of implied threats being directed at the clerk.

"Um...I'll just go see if she's available." Instead of using an intercom link, the girl actually popped up and scurried into a back office in person. Lyon felt a bit sorry about scaring her, but she supposed that it was the most efficient way of clearing the particular obstacle. Ryland probably didn't feel guilty at all, at least not yet. He had certain strong attitudes about drug use that Lyon judged had a 79.3-percent probability of being rooted in more than merely philosophical objections.

The blue-haired Newman girl returned in less that two minutes with a look of relief on her face.

"Ms. Perrin says she can see you now. Please go on in."

The manager's office continued the theme of the outer area, with sleek modern furniture and a minimum of clutter. A wall display was currently set to the image of a sunset over a no doubt romantic beach.

The manager herself was a much different type than her receptionist. She was a tall, curvy brunette in her mid-thirties with her hair pulled back in a ruler-straight ponytail and wore wide, round-rimmed glasses. Her mouth was full and generous. Lyon suspected that if she ran the woman's appearance through an image search the closest match would be the promo images for "Naughty Librarian" ero-vids.

Except the eyes. They might be able to pull off "affectionately naughty" if they tried, but they weren't trying. They were cold, hard, and distinctly Not Amused.

"I'm Madeline Perrin; I operate Forever Dreams. To what do I owe the honor of a visit by hired goons?"

"Hired goons?" Ryland said dryly.

"Shea, although admittedly excitable, gave me the impression that if I didn't make time for you, your intention was to redecorate the office walls with her."

Apparently the stare was more effective than Lyon had thought.

"You will find that I am _not_ particularly excitable, so please tell me the name of the client and the complaint which requires Hunter's Guild intervention." She folded her hands calmly.

"We were hired by Terence Nyle, and he--"

"Wants the contact information of the woman he was matched with, yes. I'm aware of this, as he's made a number of calls to us for that precise purpose. I'm going to tell you what I told him--indeed, what we tell every client when they register with us. The identities of our clients are private. If they wish to disclose personal information, they may do so themselves. Indeed, we hope they will; the whole point of Forever Dreams is to bring people together for romance, so we naturally want bonds of love and trust to form. But if that doesn't happen, we want the client to be able to walk away free of entanglements. We're a limited community here on _Pioneer 2_, and it's not good to form too many bad relationships.

"Now, I understand that your Mr. Nyle wants this information, but I cannot give it to him. That's all there is to it."

"Yes, but this isn't some rejected suitor. This is a man who's deeply concerned about a woman who might be in trouble."

"So he says. I have no way of knowing if that's true," Ms. Perrin replied. "For all I know, Rina may have rejected him and he wants to win her back--or to get back _at_ her. Especially given that Valentine's Day is just around the corner. Being dumped right as the year's major romantic holiday arrives can be extremely provoking, Mr.--"

"Ryland. She's Lyon. And while what you say is true, you don't think Mr. Nyle is one of those people. In fact, you know that he's telling the truth."

"That is a remarkably positive statement."

"The virtual reality sessions for your clients' dates would be run from your own computer systems, which would naturally archive a data record of the event. You would retain a copy, from which you could verify Mr. Nyle's story."

"Our privacy policy does not allow us to view those records without the permission of both parties or a valid order from legal authority," Ms. Perrin said coolly. "That's part of the contract between ourselves and the clients."

Lyon decided it was time for her to step in. Since Ryland had been taking the cool, businesslike approach, she decided to be the "bad cop" in contrast.

"It's curious you'd show such concern for your clients' privacy when you're showing none at all about their brains."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm just pointing out that most wire merchants don't have such scruples. More likely, you examine the sessions for information dropped in pillow talk, to save the juicier bits for resale as underground porn, or to keep for blackmail so you can get whatever you can wring out of your clients before the neural damage is permanent. Do you seriously think we didn't know what you were when we walked in?"

This worked, Lyon considered; it was better for her to play the bad cop so Ryland didn't get carried away by his natural feelings.

"We link our clients through customized VR environments. We offer tactile-enhanced for an additional fee if they wish. We don't hotwire people."

"Yet you know what it is."

"I know what a rifle is. I don't sell them, either."

Lyon reached across the desk, grabbed Ms. Perrin by the shirt front, and hoisted her to her feet.

"Are you ordinarily this stupid?"

"This is assault. Hunters or not, you have no right to lay your hands on me."

"You're right. Let's call the milipol and have them come here, take our statements, and carefully examine the crime scene. Particularly the electronics."

"You're bluffing. Your own client--"

"Is a man in love," Ryland finished. "You ought to know what that means, in this business. He'll gladly take the hit if he has to--especially since the penalties for using aren't anywhere near as strict as those for dealing."

Ms. Perrin looked from him to Lyon. Her eyes were hard and cold, but it really wasn't possible to stare down an android. Somewhere around the fifteen-second mark, she made up her mind.

"All right," she decided. "Let's deal."


	3. Chapter 3

"I want to make one point perfectly clear up front," Ms. Perrin said once Lyon had let her go. "I am not a wire merchant, at least not in the sense you understand it."

The hunters sat down, since they were now on an allegedly negotiating basis.

"I don't see the fine distinction," Ryland said. Clearly, he was not impressed.

"I believe in what I'm doing here. I don't just manage the business; it was my idea and I own it, apart from an equity stake--a _minority_ stake--I sold to investors for the start-up capital. I know how important love is to people; I've had it. My fiancee was killed in 3081 in the Iris Maure food riots, which is why I came on board _Pioneer 2_. Ragol was to be our hope for the future, so things like that wouldn't happen."

She crossed her arms over her chest.

"You're hunters, so you have a better idea than civilians like me what has happened, but even I know that things are not going well. The truth, though, is that even though it may be years or even decades before any of us can set foot on the surface, we have to get on with _living_ our lives, and that means we need something to live _for_ other than just our faceless jobs."

It sounded so much like what Nyle had said that it took Lyon aback. Ironically, she herself had never had these kind of thoughts--but then again, as a hunter she already was involved in living life and looking forward towards the future.

"That's all very high-minded of you," Ryland remarked, "but I don't really see how creating a population of brain-fried wireheads is giving them something to live for, other then their next fix."

"Damn it; I told you it is _not like that_. We provide a shared virtual environment so that people can meet one another without the baggage of real life. Yes, we do use the same technology as hotwirers do to create the most realistic sessions possible--_if_ both parties consent to it. We don't broadcast fantasies for them to hotwire into their brains the way the wire merchants do. We construct a full-sensory virtual environment within an appropriately scheduled match period, never on demand."

"So you try to minimize exposure in order to reduce the chance of habituation or side effects," Lyon said. "Nonetheless, the risks exist. Direct neural stimulation is habit-forming, and there is always a chance of injury or death; repeated use merely increases that risk."

"There are risks we take every day," Ms. Perrin responded. "Every time you fly in an aerocar you risk that the engine will fail. As hunters, I'm sure you've risked your life for money. That's considerably more than the very minor risks taken for a few hotwiring sessions under controlled conditions, especially when the goal is love.

"As for your other accusations, they are completely false. The sessions are recorded solely for the purposes of scanning the neural feedback information, so we can pull the plug if anomalies crop up. We don't keep the actual sensory input longer than one week."

"Why the one week?"

"Even in a virtual environment, Mr. Ryland, there are lines of behavior that shouldn't be crossed. If someone is making threats or something similar, I want to be able to verify a complaint so the appropriate action can be taken."

"Then it seems to me you have a very easy answer to our problem. View the end of the session between Mr. Nyle and Rina, and if what he said is accurate, give us her name and contact information. That way you know she isn't running away from _him_. We have no desire to help a predator find his victim, only to help a woman in trouble--and if our client lied to us, we want to know."

"That sounds reasonable for you, but what about Rina? Part of what she pays us for is--"

"Look, he's offering you the carrot," Lyon interrupted with strategic rudeness. "We can go back to the stick if you want. Remember that regardless of how 'controlled' or 'limited' the process is, hotwiring remains both dangerous and illegal. The milipol won't let you wait until your first client ends up wireburnt before they shut you down."

Ms. Perrin's response was one syllable long and not as polished as her appearance.

"That would probably be my reaction in your place," Ryland admitted, "but it doesn't change the facts."

She sighed heavily.

"I suppose not."

Ms. Perrin touched a spot on her desk and a panel slid open in front of her to reveal a keyboard. She began typing and a holoscreen appeared in the air. She accessed the file she wanted, then took a VR headset from the drawer and slid it on. For about five minutes she slumped back in her cushioned chair, largely lost in the sights and sounds of the end of Nyle and Rina's date. Lyon observed cynically that the manager was not using a hotwire rig, but absorbing only those elements that could be experienced through ordinary, safe virtual environments.

When she was done, she sat up, removed, and replaced the headset.

"Very well; it looks like your client was at least telling the truth. Rina's name is Amber Carteret. I'll transfer her application data to your PDLs. Will that suffice?"

Ryland nodded.

"Thank you."

"You'll forgive me if I don't say 'you're welcome.'"

-X X X-

Amber Carteret's client data was intriguing, Lyon considered. She'd left blank every optional field in her application which, in addition, had been completed online. Most clients, Ms. Perrin had explained, preferred at least one face-to-face consult to get to know the people they'd be dealing with and making sure their wishes were appreciated. Amber's contacts had all been electronic.

"Only one in ten clients follow that route," the RAcaseal mused aloud. "I'd have thought it'd be higher, since anyone who even uses the service has to believe in online communication."

"You can't get around human nature," Ryland said. "We default in our minds to face-to-face, physical contact. Anything else is just a simulation of part of that, from our viewpoint."

"Odd--but then again, I just see it as a different medium for data exchange. You probably don't even think of the step of translating the pure data in your brain into spoken words and body language."

"I certainly don't, and I doubt anyone else does, except in the case of those with medical conditions making that step difficult to take."

What data had been provided--name, age, sex, address, job--had been verified against Amber's citizen file. That kind of screening was necessary to prevent fraud. Nobody wanted to find out that the twenty-five-year-old woman they were dating was actually a fifty-year-old man.

That was an intriguing gender difference. Women sometimes adopted a male online persona for security against harassment, but only men seemed to reverse their gender for sexual or romantic reasons. Lyon found it curious enough that she partitioned off a subroutine to analyze the data on that point--the human equivalent being letting something kick around in the back of her mind. Probably she wouldn't conclude anything relevant, but what was life without a few questions?

The hunters tried calling Amber first and got nowhere, so they went to her residence in person and rang the chime.

"Who is it?"

"Donovan Ryland and Lyon, from the Hunter's Guild. We called you ten minutes ago, and--"

"Look," she interrupted, "I just told you. I don't know any Terence Nyle, I've never called myself Rina either online or in person, and I sure as hell have never used a _dating service_! How much more clear do I have to be?"

"Ms. Carteret, Forever Dreams' records clearly show your name, address, background information, and electronic address as the contact point. Do you--"

Ryland was interrupted again, this time by the residence door hissing open. Amber Carteret was short, barely five-two, with a petite build, bright yellow hair, and blue eyes.

And a temper, apparently.

"I'm not responsible for what some effing dating service sticks in their records, understand?" She poked Ryland in the chest, which probably hurt given her long, indigo-painted nails. "I didn't call them, I didn't use them, I haven't paid them any fees, and I've sure as hell never gone out with some creep who needs a computer to set him up with a girl!" She poked Ryland again. "Geez, I've _got_ a boyfriend, anyway, and if I want someone else I'll pick one up at a club." Amber paused, then looked up at Ryland speculatively. "Actually, you're kind of cute for a guy in a dress. Can you dance?"

Ryland, being a professional, neither Rafoied the girl nor devolved into protests that formal Force's robes were not a dress.

"Do you have a roommate or a friend who could have logged into the service as you?" he asked.

"What? No, I live alone, and I don't think any of my friends could have copped enough e-time while they were visiting. Besides, I don't even hang here much. You think this is some kind of practical joke?"

"It's not a joke for Terence Nyle," Lyon said quietly.

-X X X-

The parking center where the hunters had docked to visit Amber wasn't a usual side-mount area but an eight-level building that served as a hub for four residential units. Rows of vehicles neatly arranged in their slots formed a maze of steel and plastiglass, making conditions perfect.

Not perfect for the hunters, that is, but for the two men who stepped out from between nearby vehicles as Lyon and Ryland returned to their aerocar.

"I think we need to have a little talk," one announced. He was a tall man, broad across the shoulders, with a square face and buzz-cut cyan hair. His fashion sense followed his appearance; he wore close-fitting black, including gloves. He'd approached from the left, while his associate had come from the right, keeping the hunters between them. The second man was much like the first in looks, though shorter and with pink hair they could otherwise have been brothers.

"Who are you?" Lyon asked.

"Now, see, that isn't one of the things we need to talk about."

"You should have guessed that, Lyon," Ryland told her dryly.

"There's no need for attitude," Cyan Hair stated. "This is in the nature of friendly advice. You need to go back to your client and tell him, too bad but there's other fish in the sea. Then you can get back to taking Guild Quests investigating Ragol instead of playing in the lonely-hearts club."

Neither man had shown a weapon yet, Lyon noted, which left the initiative with the hunters. Unless, of course, they were technique users. Yet, if they were going to stick to the soft approach, jumping the gun would only land Lyon and Ryland in trouble.

"And if we choose not to be advised, or for that matter friendly?" she asked.

"That," replied Pink Hair, "would be a mistake."

"And so, we arrive inevitably at the 'or else' portion of the discussion," Ryland sighed. "Tell me, are your threats going to be at all creative, or will it all be as...typical as it's been so far?"

Cyan Hair shook his head sadly.

"Threats? Really, you're not understanding us at all. Probably it's a natural byproduct of having a violent job like hunting that you come to expect more violence from others."

"Sad," Pink Hair agreed.

"We're just here to point out that certain people would be very displeased with you were you to keep pushing in this direction. I'm sure you don't want to stir up bad feelings without reason, do you? It just wouldn't be civilized."

"Peaceable co-existence is the core of any civilized society," Ryland agreed. "Still, many philosophers suggest that only through conflict and resolution can we better ourselves as human beings."

Pink Hair scowled. Cyan Hair, on the other hand, broadened his urbane grin into a genuine smile.

"I've always been sympathetic to that point of view myself," he said. "I'm glad to meet a fellow seeker after self-actualization."

He clenched his hands into fists. There was a humming sound as a Photon driver engaged, and a moment later his gloves were shredded from the inside by the surge of energy surrounding the gauntlet-type weapon he wore underneath them.

"Finally," Lyon sighed. "I thought you two would never get past all that banter."


	4. Chapter 4

The cyan-haired man rushed Lyon, covering the distance between himself and the RAcaseal in two quick steps ending with a right hook towards the side of her head. It was good strategy when dealing with a Ranger; her combat programming and physical construction were optimized for long-range engagements.

Lyon barely got her saber out in time to parry, the golden bar of its Photon blade springing up just in the nick of time to intercept the attack. The clash of the Durandal meeting the Photon field of the attacker's Brave Knuckle jolted them both, but Cyan Hair was quickly at her again with a kick-into-fist combination that left Lyon ducking away from the attack. Her evasion, though, did what it was meant to, open enough ground between them to give her room to counterstrike, and she did, making him block two successive attacks before he interrupted her assault with a step-in punch to her torso. Lyon's internal monitors reported that the damage was largely cosmetic, but she feinted taking more serious harm by stumbling back. Cyan Hair followed up, only to have her rip a backhanded swing across his chest that knocked him over onto his back.

Not wanting to fall for her own trick, Lyon took a guard position while Cyan Hair regained his footing. Though her strike had left a rip across his tunic where it had gotten through the defense of his Photon frame, it hadn't managed to disturb his good humor.

"Not bad. I wouldn't have expected a Ranger type to be so at ease with hand-to-hand battle."

Lyon didn't answer; she wasn't much for snappy banter in combat if she could help it. Cyan Hair's smile only widened, and in the next instant a heavy blow hit Lyon's legs from behind, not a weapon hit but a body falling against her. Cyan Hair stepped in quickly and slammed a punch to her head that sent her toppling over backwards, falling across Ryland's prone body.

"Like we said, this is in the nature of friendly advice. You don't want to start making the wrong people angry at you."

He turned and slipped away between the rows of docked aerocars, and his pink-haired friend did the same, leaving the two sprawled hunters alone and embarrassed.

"Message received," Lyon groused, tapping her fingers on the concrete.

"I'm sorry," Ryland said. "He was on me before I could get a technique off."

Lyon decided to accept his apology, so swung herself off him and got to her feet, then offered him a hand up.

"That's why they flanked us. Basic tactics. Our usual strategy as partners is to have me engage the enemy at close range to give you the freedom to launch techniques. What did Pink Hair use for a weapon?"

"Daggers, but he caught me with the hilt, not the blade." Ryland brushed down his robes. "I suppose this means they were telling the truth about warning us off instead of just killing us outright."

"Yes, but who would warn us off, and from what?"

"I can only assume the same people Rina believed were after her. As to why, we can only guess." He paused, then said, "What's that?"

Lyon followed the direction of his pointing finger, observing a small object nearly hidden in the shadow of the aerocar docked next to theirs. It peeked out from beneath one of the finlike flight vanes. She enhanced magnification, then verbalized her surprise with a simulated gasp of breath.

"It's a Section ID badge!" She walked over and picked it up. There was a crack that ran across the radius line from edge to center. "I must have knocked it off Cyan Hair's chest when I slashed him."

"Well, well; maybe we'll have the 'who' soon enough after all. Log the ID code, then put the badge back."

"Put it back?"

"He'll notice it's missing soon enough and come back for it. If he finds it here, he'll probably assume we _didn't_ see it. I don't want them to know we have a lead on their identity yet. If they took the trouble to warn us off, they'll probably give us a free hand for a while to see if we take the advice. There's no reason to force a confrontation any earlier than we have to."

"At least not until we can dictate the terms," Lyon agreed. She scanned the badge's ID record, then set it back down precisely where she had found it, an optical-memory comparison indicating a 99.9937% match in placement. Unless their personality was programmed for approximation or mistakes, androids tended to be perfectionists. It wasn't on purpose; it was just a function of actually knowing precisely where the badge had been in a way a human or Newman could not.

Just to be on the safe side, she did a quick sweep of the aerocar for bugs or tracking devices, but apparently the two men hadn't been inclined towards surveillance. Or at least not any more; clearly _someone_ had been paying attention to them--or to Amber Carteret.

"So now what?" Lyon asked once they were airborne. "Ms. Carteret was very direct in her refusals."

"Actually..." Ryland began slowly, "I got the impression that she was telling the truth."

"She did appear to be," Lyon agreed, "but a good liar will not show typical biological stress reactions when lying." She paused for about ten seconds, then admitted, "I believe her, too."

"Then was Ms. Perrin lying, I wonder?" Ryland considered. "Covering for Rina on a second stage, by giving us a false name? If so, why? What makes her so important?"

"Maybe it's not the people who are lying. Machines can lie, too."

"You'd know."

"Yes, but that's not quite what I meant. You asked Ms. Carteret about it--if someone else had used her computer, then the electronic signature would match up with hers for purposes of Forever Dreams' screening process." Lyon thought about it. "Only she said that she hadn't let someone use her unit for that."

"Maybe she didn't know."

"What, you think someone broke in while she was at work? That can't be right."

Slowly, a smile crept onto Ryland's face.

"Not the way you meant it, no...but there's other ways to break into a computer."

Ryland hit a few buttons and the aerocar altered traffic channels to account for his revised destination.

"Where are we going?"

"To get help. I think we need a little e-sistance to prove this one."

"Just so you know, Ryland, my morality database suggests that puns like that one are a strong justification for murder."

-X X X-

In most cities, downtown meant the urban core, the very heart of the most densely developed area. On _Pioneer 2_, the area called Downtown was literally down, the street levels of several blocks. The poor, the disenfranchised, and the criminal had gravitated there, basic human nature having forcibly created a slum even in an artificially developed city only a few years old. The process had only accelerated once settlement on Ragol had become indefinitely delayed; like Nyle and Perrin had both said, people needed to get on with their lives and this apparently applied also to destroying those lives through greed, debauchery, or despair.

The Nebula was a Downtown bar, a hole-in-the-wall that reeked of cheap liquor, greasy synthetic food, and too many unwashed bodies in too-close proximity. Lyon decided that it was a good thing she could adjust her olfactory senses to filter some of the stink. Absorbing it as pure data was a lot easier than having to endure it the way organics did. Music blared out of a second-rate sound system as the hunters pushed past tables of men and women tricked out in synthetic leather and chrome steel, made to look like they had a street-forged toughness. Ryland, with his Force's robes, long hair, and glasses, looked completely out of place, drawing stares and mocking laughter from more than one patron.

Resentment flared in her, that these gutterpunks and street-fighters would treat her partner that way, but Lyon fought it down. Ryland was ignoring them, probably because a bar brawl would get solidly in the way of doing whatever they'd come for in the first place. So she too ignored them, though it didn't keep her from imagining how these "hardcases" would do on Ragol face to face with a Grass Assassin.

Ryland stopped at one of the rear booths, where a skinny kid with spiky red hair sat next to a blonde Newman girl wearing a set of visor-style sunshades. The violet tint of the shades matched what little there was of her outfit.

"You pick such _charming_ places to do business, Kendric," Ryland said.

The kid shrugged. Lyon estimated his age at anywhere from fifteen to nineteen. The glass of cheap synthetic whiskey in front of him was no clue; the Nebula would serve anyone with the ability to pay in cash.

"Hey, what can I say? I dig the atmosphere." He glanced at the blonde and grinned. "Not to mention the scenery."

"Is that all she is?"

She stretched, arching her back in catlike fashion and not so subtly putting some of her best features on display. When she brought her hand up, the inch-long blades implanted in place of her nails caught the light.

"Think of me as...insurance," she purred, and slid her razors across the tabletop, scratching neat little grooves in the plastic.

"Spare me," Lyon sighed.

The wannabe HUnewearl's mouth flexed into a growl.

"I don't have to take that from some tin toy."

"Easy," Kendric said, then looked Lyon up and down. "Weinstine Co. model, right? Type L/T or L/Y?"

Lyon nodded.

"L/Y."

"So a new, independent-AI android, probably a Guild hunter in your own right?"

"You have a good eye." She was surprised.

"Go away, Justine," he told the Newman. "These two are way out of your league. Play too many games and they might decide to prove it to you."

She looked back and forth between him and the hunters, then got up and flounced off with bad grace.

"Sorry about that. She keeps the riff-raff away."

Ryland slid into the booth; Lyon followed him a moment later.

"So we're out of her league, but not yours?" she asked.

"Maybe at fighting, but that isn't what you want from me, is it?" He took a quick drink. "Not often I have hunters for clients. You people usually have Lab backing if you can't handle something on your own. And for big bro here to come to _me_ for help..." He looked up theatrically. "Is the sky falling? Hell frozen over? Pigs taking wing?"

"'Big bro'?" Lyon asked. "Literally?" Come to think of it, their hair was an identical cherry-red shade, and a comparison of facial features suggested a 72% chance of some genetic connection between the two. Ryland's glasses enhanced the differences, so she hadn't seen the resemblance until she looked for it.

"Born and bred. See, Donny went with Dad when our parents split, and went up in the world. Mom kind of went the other direction. S'okay, though, since I don't look good in a dress, anyway. Didn't even know we'd both come on _Pioneer 2_ 'til we nearly got here."

Ryland gritted his teeth, whether at 'Donny' or the dress or both.

"You know very well we'd have been there for you if you'd asked."

"Way I call it, you ought to at least know how your blood's doing without them having to come to you. We always knew when Dad made senior professor or you won some Academy prize." Kendric shrugged. "Water under the bridge. 'Sides, I doubt your electric friend wants to waste her time listening to our family yap."

Lyon wasn't actually sure of that; she hadn't known Ryland even _had_ family, let alone on _Pioneer 2_, but business was business.

"So the real question becomes, what can your little bro do for you, Donny?"

"It's a missing persons job." He gave Kendric the short version of the story, ending with the gap between Amber's claim and the information they'd gotten from Ms. Perrin.

"So what, you figure that this Rina lady did a little creative hacking and used Amber's computer as a waypoint for her links to the hook-up outfit?"

"Would that work?"

"Sure. Rina claims she's Amber Carteret and a backtrace on the connection would point to Amber Carteret. Seriously, how deep is a dating service going to go in screening people's e-traces, anyway?"

"So this is something you can track?"

"I can go a lot deeper than they will, that's for sure. Especially since you only care about one person and not a whole client catalog." Kendric flashed another grin. "'Sides, here's a chance where my tech-slinging Hunter bro needs me to point him the right way. Won't be missing that for the world."


	5. Chapter 5

Kendric's workspace was an ordinary residential unit, low-end but by now means inadequate. Any registered citizen on _Pioneer 2_ had the bare minimum of living space just as part of the function of being a colonist. Only the unregistered, the failed, or those who chose to actually lived in Downtown, though many more gravitated there for business or what passed for pleasure. The decor ran heavily towards unwashed laundry and empty take-out foodpaks. The computer desk in one corner was a notable exception; while scattered with loose disks and add-on hardware, there wasn't a speck of grime or debris in the area.

Their host dropped into a chair and invited, "Pull up a seat and I'll get to work."

Ryland and Leon eyed the state of the unit's other chairs, then chorused, "We'll stand."

"Your feet." Kendric tapped a few keys and a holoscreen phased into existence in front of him, then a couple of additional, smaller displays popped up to flank it. "Give me those names and addresses again?"

Lyon did.

"All right. Most people just leave their net access linked 24/7, and a business would certainly have to. Hard to accept online applications and provide dates otherwise, right?"

His fingers skimmed over the controls, causing images and menus to cascade over the displays.

"Now, there we are. We've got Amber's machine and...aha, your dating service lady takes her privacy seriously. 'Course, if she's a wire merchant besides, that's not much of a surprise." Kendric shuffled through the disks, selected one, and popped it into the machine. Indicators strobed across the screen as what Lyon assumed was some kind of security cracker went to work.

"And we're in! Now, let's see, we'll synch up these access records...yep, here we are, repeated links and contacts, just like your lady told you. These last datastreams here..." He pointed to the screen. "These are definitely consistent with a hotwire stream, up to and including this last one."

"The date and time indicator matches what Nyle said was their last date," Lyon observed.

"So maybe your client's telling you the truth."

"The question is, was his date telling the truth to him?"

"I'm working on that one, okay? So what we're working on here is the idea that someone routed their connection to Forever Dreams through Amber's computer, using it as a relay location. That'd be a bit of clever hacking, but nothing impossible to set up. I could do it; hell, I'm doing it right now."

"You are?"

"You bet," he answered Lyon. "Hacking into private computer systems is a no-no so far as the law's concerned, even if I am doing it for a good cause, rescuing damsels in distress and so on. I don't even have that Hunter's Guild extraterritoriality stuff to cover my backside. So yeah, I'm routing this through a side step or two. That way if I trip any alerts it'll confuse the trace attempts."

"So this Rina is a hacker."

"Not so fast, big bro. I'm just saying it's a method we net-dancers use. Could be she's got nothing to do with us, just borrowed the idea 'cause it's a good one. Could also be she hired someone to set it up for her the way you hired me. All we know, she could be a Force who has trouble with technology more advanced than a light switch."

"Exactly who do you think designs those machines you're so fond of using?" Ryland said through gritted teeth. "A substantial minority of Photon engineers and scientists are Forces. Since our understanding of the manipulation of Photon energy is usually superior due to our direct experience, it's only natural that we tend to be skilled in designing technology that uses Photon energy."

"And despite all that it's easy as heck to yank your chain," Kendric shot back with a grin.

"Play nice, boys."

"Yes, Mom."

Lyon glanced at Ryland.

"It must be genetic," she said, grinning.

"Hey, I've got something here!" Kendric suddenly interjected. "Take a look here." He pointed at one of the displays.

"What are we looking at?" Ryland asked.

"A shadow. Not a big one; someone went to some effort to cloak it, but every time Amber's linked up with Forever Dreams, there's a simultaneous connection with a third-party source. In other words, you were right. Somebody's using Amber as a cover. Maybe your Rina's some pervy guy who figures being a pretty girl'll get him some online action."

"So why would a goon squad be warning us off?"

Kendric shrugged. "Maybe Nyle was getting too serious, so Rina broke it off and hired those guys to keep you from finding out? I mean, they played pretty nice for a couple of hardcases."

It actually made sense, which annoyed Lyon. She didn't want the case to end up being something so mundane and sordid, especially since Nyle's feelings had become engaged. Unfortunately, facts did not rearrange themselves to suit personal desires, no matter how hard so many people tried to persuade themselves it might be otherwise.

"There's certainly one way to find out," Ryland said. "Follow this second communication to its source."

"I can't."

"You _can't_?"

"You don't think I tried? Look, this ain't easy, you know," Kendric said truculently. "It's not like hacking into Amber's machine was some baby job; there's network security to deal with, especially since I'm staging my own approach through a third party, which is a whole new level of security to work through. Rina didn't just leave a big flashing sign saying 'I'm Really Here' in Amber's system, after all. She cloaked it pretty well, maybe _real_ well. I was lucky to find what I did!"

Ryland didn't say anything. He just looked at Kendric. Kendric looked back defiantly, but there was more than defiance there. The older brother who was an educated Force, a successful hunter, had come to the younger brother who worked out of sleazy bars and a toxic waste dump of a residence, needing help--and the younger brother had failed to give it. This was his big chance to reverse their status, at least in the short term, and he'd dropped the ball.

"Aw, hell," Kendric finally gave in and slapped the desk with his palm. "Hell," he repeated, "I'm sure I could trace it if I could work from Amber's machine itself. It's doing it by remote that's killing my efficiency here."

"You're sure?"

"Pretty damn sure."

"All right, then; we'll see what we can arrange."

-X X X-

"Did you know that you talk more formally around your brother, Ryland?"

"What?"

"You do. You sound like an android without an emotional setting in his personality matrix."

"I do not."

"Okay, how about I download my memory of your dialogue into the car's computer and play it back for you?"

Ryland turned his head and gave her a curious look.

"You're serious, aren't you? I mean, you're teasing, but you also mean what you say?"

"Of course. It's really kind of funny."

Amber Carteret wasn't doing anything as convenient as answering her PDL, so the hunters were forced to return in person. Lyon couldn't recall a job that had required so many aerocar miles. Too bad their commission was a flat fee, not based on expenses.

"I wonder," she said, continuing her line of thought, "if he's the same way--if he puts on more of that street argot when he's around you?"

"That would be lowering, wouldn't it? Two brothers who turn into _poseurs_ in front of each other?"

"Personally, I think it's kind of cute."

"My psychological idiosyncracies are cute?"

"Well, whatever issues you have, they don't affect your job performance, and although we work together almost daily and have for nearly two years, you've never even mentioned that you have a brother, let alone that he was on _Pioneer 2_, so I'd say that you don't spend much time obsessing over your flawed relationship with him." She shrugged. "So in those circumstances, yes, it's cute."

He glanced at her over the top of his glasses.

"Is that actually the analysis your mind went through? I mean, deliberately weighing the likely amount of psychological pain my brother causes me based on your observations of me?"

"Of course. Had the estimated probability that my remark would hurt you exceeded a certain threshold--determined by my personality's pre-set level of sensitivity to others as adjusted by the status of our relationship including your importance to me and our established level of trust--I wouldn't have spoken."

Ryland shook his head in amazement.

"Sometimes being your partner is a real revelation."

"It's actually the same thing that goes on in your own mind, Ryland. My personality is designed to mimic an organic's based upon the most advanced psychological research. The only difference is that you're only peripherally aware of the process while I have access to the entire algorithm."

"Maybe so..." His voice trailed off, as if he were thinking it over, then he changed the subject. "Lyon, do you have siblings?"

"When we left Coral, Weinstine Co. had produced nine hundred and seventy-four Type L/Y androids, sixty-one of which came on _Pioneer 2_, incidentally. But no, I wouldn't say that I have siblings."

"Does it bother you that I've never told you about Kendric?"

She thought that one over.

"Well, as partners, we should have a relationship based on trust. Given how important sibling relationships typically are to organics, it implies a lower level of intimacy than would be preferable. Yet when I consider our actual relationship, there's no _reason_ for you to discuss him. We don't really spend much time exchanging details about our past lives. Even when we do make small talk it's about hobbies, interests, politics, Go-Ball teams--"

"I never understood your appreciation for that."

"--but not about the past. It's all where we are, not how we got here."

"I think on some level it's because a conversation ought to be an exchange of information, balanced. But you don't have a past; you were built a year before _Pioneer 2_ left Coral. Any conversation would really just be me blathering on."

"I agree. Next time, though..."

"Yes?"

"If you've got any other family members you want to consult, tell me who they are before we actually meet them. Sometimes you're a little too fond of surprises."

Ryland chuckled.

"Deal."

They docked in the same parking center as they had on their first visit, only about thirty feet away from where the two men had attacked them. When she got out of the aerocar, Lyon had her railgun charged and ready in her hand, just in case. If they were somehow under surveillance or if it was the parking center itself being watched, their attackers might decide that one warning was all they got.

Nothing happened, though, as they went from the hub to Amber's building and rode the elevator to her level. No attack came, no mysterious watchers were in evidence. There was nothing at all to be seen, right up to the lack of response at Amber's intercom.

"That's odd."

"With our luck, she's out."

"If she's out, she should have her PDL with her to take calls, and if she's out-and-can't-be-bothered she'd probably have put it on message mode. It's what I do."

Lyon nodded. Of course, Amber might just be careless, but...She reached out and pressed the door switch. Surprisingly, the panel slid open, and the smell registered immediately. She had her gun out again when she entered, but there was little point to it. Whomever had been there had come and gone. The residential unit, with its frilly, feminine touches and reflective glitter knickknacks had been defaced by the body of its owner. There was a certain parallel to it: where Amber had a neat hole punched through her heart, likely by some kind of Photon-based firearm, the room also had a gap in its center, an equally neat hole in the center of her entertainment display where her computer had been removed.


	6. Chapter 6

"Rina thought someone was after her," Ryland said. "I guess she was right."

They'd reported the death to the police, given some superficial details, and immediately claimed Guild privilege concerning the details of their quest. Inspector Laleham, the homicide chief, had growled and threatened and gnashed his teeth, but there was nothing he could do. Extraterritoriality was extraterritoriality, and while a hunter was still legally responsible for any crimes he or she might commit personally, only with the consent of the Guild itself could a hunter be required to disclose details of a job.

Lyon supposed they could have given the police more, but distrust ran deep between the Guild and the military chain of command which ultimately governed law enforcement. Besides which, the milipol's priority would be the dead Amber Carteret, while the hunters were more interested in saving--if they could--the hopefully still living Rina.

"B-but to _kill_," Nyle stammered.

"All kinds of people kill, Ryland said, "for all kinds of reasons. Power, money, revenge, fear, love...and that's only the private, personal reasons. When we start killing in groups, as nations at war, then we're even more enthusiastic about it. This, though, is particularly unpleasant. Whomever killed her didn't care about her at all. It was only because she was a possible lead to Rina."

"Wait..._that's_ why you told me to get out of my apartment?" Nyle put the pieces together. "Because you thought I might be next?"

"It's possible," Ryland said. "Killing Ms. Carteret cut the link to Forever Dreams and hence to you, but there's still the possibility that someone thinks Rina may have told you something, or that you've communicated with her by other ways than just through the dating service."

"But we haven't, I swear it! Don't you think I'd have told you if I had?"

"I do think so," Ryland said, "but I'm not the one who's the threat, and the kind of person who kills to clean up loose ends tends to be paranoid. Each kill adds to the risk of capture, meaning that in turn the _next_ kill is more likely to happen. That's why we brought you here."

"Here" was Lyon's residence unit. As an independent android and a Guild member she was entitled to private quarters just like an organic hunter. The furnishings were Spartan in the extreme since she only used the recharge pod and the data terminal with any regularity, but it was livable. More importantly, a hunter's residence was considerably more secure than an ordinary citizen's.

Especially when they added to that security a tall HUcast in forest-green carapace.

His name was Merlin, a Falcon-type android and a fellow Guild member. Although inexperienced, his physical size and close-quarters combat ability made him perfect for protecting Nyle in the small room. His services had cost Lyon and Ryland a thousand meseta, but Nyle had been happy to cover the added fee. He had no desire to end up dead.

"Are you sure," Lyon asked, "that Rina told you nothing, even in passing, about whomever might be after her?" It had been asked before, but she knew the nature of human memory was imprecise.

"No, nothing. I had no idea she was even _in_ trouble until that moment! We...we were just starting to make love, when she suddenly sat up and announced, 'Oh no! They've found me--I have to hurry!' Then she told me she loved me and faded out. She didn't have _time_ to tell me anything else!"

It was the same thing he'd told them before; so much for imprecision.

Then it hit her.

"Ryland, that can't be what happened, can it?"

He looked at her curiously, trying to figure out what she meant. Then his eyes widened, and he groaned miserably.

"Oh, how could we have been so _stupid_?"

"I'm telling you, that's exactly what happened!" Nyle protested. "I'm not lying to you!"

"That isn't what we meant," Lyon told him. "Stay here, _don't_ go out, _don't_ make any calls or active net connections. We have no idea who's working the other side or how wide their scope of activities ranges, so don't take chances."

"Believe me, I won't!"

The problem was, they all said that. Most of them even meant it. So Lyon added another layer.

"Just remember, it won't do Rina any good if we save her life, then bring her back to a corpse."

Nyle blanched. Message received.

"Come on, Ryland. We have people to see."

-X X X-

The first step was simple and obvious. Once Nyle was secured, they needed to follow their one definite lead, so Ryland called his brother.

"Yo, Donny, what gives? I've been waiting a while."

"That project fell through. Someone...got to it first."

Kendric understood almost at once. Living in the shadows of the law as he did, he was bound to.

"...Sorry."

"There's something else you can do. I need to trace a Hunter's Guild Section ID, Viridia zero-three-six-nine-A-four."

"Sure, but...why ask me? You could get that through the Guild."

"Yes, but he might have friends there who wonder why I'm checking on his ID, and perhaps tell him. You won't."

"Point. Okay, I'm on it. Simple-mail you the results...and my bill."

"Just remember I'm not paid on a 'plus expenses' basis."

"Hey, you want me to haggle with your clients for you, that's a whole different fee. Catch ya."

Ryland's PDL screen went to neutral.

"Okay, that's one. Do we head back to the dating service now?"

Lyon nodded.

"I don't think Ms. Perrin will want to talk over a data connection or transmit information, not if it could implicate her in hotwiring. Unlike your brother, I doubt she has the expertise to sweep a dataline against tracking or eavesdropping."

They talked it through on the way. Though they both had come to the same realization, it would have been stupid to proceed on guesswork when there was time to plan, to verify that they were both on the same page and to prepare a strategy.

Madeline Perrin was not happy to see them.

"I though we were done," she snapped. "This blackmail is not going to continue. I have an excellent advocate and will take my chances, so get out."

"Amber Carteret is dead," Lyon said. This was their strategy. Ironically, she and Ryland had concluded that Madeline Perrin would react best to the unvarnished truth.

"_What?_"

"She wasn't Rina. The real Rina was using Ms. Carteret's data unit as a relay so your screens would match up with the person you thought it was. Apparently she is or has contact with a competent hacker. Someone murdered Ms. Carteret and stole her computer in order to prevent a trace."

"Who did this?"

"We don't know. We're trying to find out."

"Then why come to me? You already have my data on her. I thought Rina _was_ Amber Carteret."

Ryland shook his head.

"That's not it. We want to review your electronic records of their last hotwiring session--not the experiences from their points of view, but the pure data."

"What can that tell you? Will it reveal where Rina originally connected from?"

"No, but it will answer another question about her. There's an anomaly in what happened."

She looked at them, from Lyon to Ryland and back, perhaps gauging their trustworthiness. Then she nodded crisply.

"All right. Come over here."

She opened up the keyboard in her desk and called up the holoscreen. The hunters came around to her side so they could see it right-way-round.

"If I understand this, the computer sends out code which the hotwire rig translates into electrical stimuli in the user's brain. Simultaneously, the user's own brain activity representing actions is translated and fed back, so the computer can add the user's actions to the fantasy and have the artificial constructs react appropriately. Is that correct?"

"It is, Mr. Ryland. Plus, the information is also added to what is sent to the other user as well. Remember that we don't sell wire dreams here, but shared virtual environments for them to interact with." She was still insisting on that distinction, that she was not truly a wire merchant. Lyon considered there to be two sides to that coin.

Ryland's PDL beeped once, indicating an incoming simple-mail message over the BEE network. He looked down to verify the sender, then met Lyon's gaze and nodded. Kendric had reported back, though they wouldn't check his message out until they were alone.

"I need to see the back-and-forth of data between Rina and your system," Lyon said. Ms. Perrin touched a few keys and two datastreams began scrolling across the screen. It was all gibberish to Ryland, of course, but Lyon's own mind did much the same thing to process her own senses and so she was able, with a forty-two second lag, to analyze the data and produce a result.

The problem lay in the fact that while hotwiring a person was placed in a five-sense virtual reality. That meant that the central nervous system deliberately ignored the input of the wirehead's real senses. The signals from the real nerves were cut off, and the artificial stimuli felt in their place. Indeed, one of the common types of neural damage suffered by wireheads was temporary or even permanent loss of one or more real-world senses while _not_ hotwiring. Yet Rina had suddenly announced that "they" had found her.

How had she known?

The most obvious possibility was that she'd been lying. She hadn't perceived anything, just declared that she had and cut the connection. If this was the case, the data Lyon was receiving would be completely normal for the session, since the only anomaly would be the user's voluntary actions.

It wasn't.

The second possibility was that Rina was telling a different lie--that she wasn't hotwiring at all, but experiencing the shared reality through some alternate form of VR. "Normal" VR communicated to the user _through_ their ordinary senses instead of by directly stimulating the brain as hotwiring did. If, for example, Rina had the audio volume turned down on her VR set, she might have been able to hear someone trying to break down a door. It was no different than yelling loud enough so someone using audio earphones could hear you.

This would have been obvious to find. The return feed of Rina's sensory input would have been choppy and incomplete. Sophisticated "normal" VR was interactive and could have returned some details, but nothing compared to what a complete hotwiring session would include. In fact, Ms. Perrin probably had a "catch" program on her computer testing the data for just that kind of thing, to make sure that the participants were all on the same playing field, since tricking one's partner into hotwiring while staying safe was a fairly nasty and unromantic thing to do.

That wasn't it, either.

The sensory data was complete. It was also artificial.

"Our friend Rina," Lyon concluded, "is an AI. The data is too precise, too calculated. It doesn't show the fits and starts, the irregularity of an organic's. It's exacting--when ambient temperature is X, perspire Y amounts. Anything related to feedback from a biological process is carefully simulated, but _too_ carefully. You organics have responses that come from actual biology, muscle fibers, chemical reactions, nerve endings, blood flow, so they're not as precise."

"I don't understand," Ms. Perrin said. "How is the fact that she's an AI relevant?"

To an android, the hotwire feed was just more data, without any kind of risk of damage to experience. And an android could easily participate in the session while still interacting with the real world, with only a possible lag from absorbing both sets of sensory data and responding independently to each. For a sufficiently advanced AI, that lag would be fractions of a second only; it was a matter of processing power.

That was the hunters' explanation of the riddle, but it wasn't what the dating service owner was asking.

"A number of Forever Dreams' clients are androids, after all," she said. "High-grade, independent androids with emotional functions have emotional needs and desires, including love."

"Yes, but this android pretended to be organic," said Ryland. "That might just have been wish fulfillment, playing out a fantasy, but the murder changes everything. _Who_ she is is obviously important, and that may or may not be why she lied about _what_ she is. One thing we know for certain, though. Whatever secrets she's concealing, someone believes they're important enough to kill for."


	7. Chapter 7

Garth Terra was an experienced Hunter. He'd been part of the Tor Malisite military on Coral, but quit after his initial four-year tour was up to go private. He'd qualified easily for the Hunter's Guild and had a productive ten-year career before boarding _Pioneer 2_. He'd had an equally productive time since then, as well. Most of his work was done on board the spaceship for one faction or another, government, military, or corporate. This meant surveillance, datatheft, extraction, bodyguarding, intimidation...really, anything but wetwork. It was a life that made him security-conscious, aware of threats.

Thus, even when the delivery bot from his favorite restaurant arrived with his dinner order, he checked its identity over the intercom's vid pickup. It was a reflex action, automatic, before he opened the locked door.

Which made the snap-kick that caught him in the face all the more unexpected.

Terra keeled over backwards, hitting his carpeted floor hard from the blow. Even as he did, his mind was reacting, processing the situation. He engaged his Photon frame at once--another reflex, go on defense whenever caught off-guard. Obviously his electronics had been spoofed and he shoved aside the question of how; he could worry about it later. Threat assessment came next: an orange and black RAcaseal, pointing a railgun at him. He recognized her as Type L/Y-906 (Lyon), one of the hunters he'd tried to warn off earlier in the day. No surprise it hadn't worked; he'd said as much when they'd been given their orders. Few hunters would back off from a threat, whether it was greed, professional honor, or ballsy macho pride that demanded they press on. Orders were orders, though, so he'd done as he was told.

Now it was going to bite him in the ass.

"Hey, Garth, don't you be eating all the noodles before--holy crap!"

It was his partner, Joss, who'd come out of the bathroom. The two men were cousins as well as fellow hunters, explaining their physical similarity and why they worked so well together. Without missing a beat, the android pivoted and shot him, the Photon round crashing through his still-wet-from-the-shower torso almost before Joss could finish the sentence.

Terra's body reacted ahead of his emotions. His foot swept up from his prone position, taking the android behind the knees, hooking her leg out from under her. She went crashing down as Terra rolled, trying to get up. He'd have made it, too, had it not been for the bolt of fire that crashed into his chest. _Foie technique_, he realized, _from the android's Force partner._ The frame's resistance to heat helped a bit, but not enough; he went down again. Lyon was on him almost at once, her left hand clamped around his throat and the barrel of her railgun screwed into his ear. Frame or no, one shot at this range would give him a headache no painkiller could cure.

"Now listen to me, you murdering scum," Lyon told him. "You are going to tell us everything you know about Rina, about Amber Carteret, about us, and what's going on, especially including who hired you."

She didn't bother with an "or else"; the "or else" was obvious. Her seriousness in this matter was already proven by Joss's corpse sprawled halfway through the bathroom door. Despite the fact that Lyon had blank blue lights rather than human-style eyes, there was anger seething in her gaze.

Terra figured that made them even.

"Murdering scum, you call us? After you gunned Joss down in cold blood, you have the nerve to call us that?"

Her hand's pressure tightened on his throat. The synthetic skin of her fingers only went so far in disguising that the grasp was made of metal and plastics instead of yielding flesh and bone.

"And how is that different from what you did to Amber Carteret? At least you have the ability to take care of yourself in a fight. She was an ordinary citizen!"

"A murderer for hire," Ryland said coldly. "Hunters are not paid assassins. You disgrace us all."

"I don't do wetwork," Terra growled. "You might as well go finish yours. It's not like you'll let me live now anyway, after you killed Joss in front of me."

"You claim someone else murdered Ms. Carteret?" Ryland asked.

"The only killers I see here are you."

"He's just trying to beg for his life, or else he figures that he can lay a guilt trip on us."

"We didn't kill _you_; why the hell would we want to kill some silly salesgirl?"

"Client orders?"

He glared at her.

"We don't _take_ those kind of orders. Like your friend said, anyone who would is a disgrace to the Guild--or some agent planted by Black Paper or their type."

"I'm inclined to believe him," said Ryland.

"You're kidding," his partner replied.

"No, I'm not. Ms. Carteret was much less of a threat in terms of personal resources than we are, and we were more likely to be able to identify them, yet we were left alive, presumably by client orders. Killing Ms. Carteret breaks the pattern."

"_Now_ you figure that out?" Terra protested. The irony of it was brutal.

"You should be happy," Lyon told him. "Now, if you tell us what we want to know, Ryland might just Reverser your friend."

_Reverser_. Terra hadn't thought of it, but it could work. The technique, too complex to be used by those who didn't have a Force's intense training in technique use, was the ultimate in emergency medical treatment. It would repair damage to the body and resuscitate a person who was even technically deceased. Like any medical treatment there were limits of time and place, but within a few minutes of death success was certain.

Two lives versus two deaths.

"You say that you aren't the killers?" Lyon snapped. "Prove it, and you can walk away from this."

Terra hesitated for a moment. If the Force genuinely believed he and Joss weren't involved in murder than the odds were he'd Reverser Joss anyway. There might not be a need to give away a client's secrets for it--something Joss would have hated. As hunters, after all, they put their lives at risk for their clients' interests with every job.

"Well, what's it going to be?" Lyon shouted at him, the barrel of her gun digging painfully into his ear. She was angry, and _she_ wasn't convinced Terra was telling the truth. Hard to redirect that anger once it had picked out a target, Terra knew. He'd been in that place before.

Besides, innocents were being killed. His client's policy ran directly opposed to that. Pooling information made sense, to keep further harm from happening while accomplishing their goals. The client would want these two brought on board, if he knew all the facts.

At least, that's what Terra would try to tell himself when he lay awake at night.

-X X X-

"I didn't realize how angry you were over this," Ryland said. The bright neon signs over eateries, clothing shops, electronics stores blazed out their appeals for the hunters' meseta as they walked by. "Usually, you're a little more obvious about it."

"I suppose."

"Or is it that the victim, Rina, is an android?"

"Excuse me?"

"The personal touch? 'There but for the grace of God go I' and all that?"

Curious, Lyon ran a status check on her emotional subroutines and found to her surprise that Ryland was right.

"How odd!" she exclaimed. "It's completely true. But why? That shouldn't matter."

Ryland chuckled. The light from a streaming Valentine's Day sale ad overhead reflected pink sparks off his glasses. All around them, ordinary citizens of _Pioneer 2_ walked back and forth, bags loaded with purchases for the upcoming holiday in their arms. Some couples were relaxed and happy, obviously in love. Other faces were tense, shoppers in need of an appropriate gift, or perhaps single people annoyed by the way all the media around them was screaming love, love, love. None had anything to do with kidnapping or murder.

"Actually, it should. It means your emotions were well-designed to mimic human feelings. Our emotions are always stronger when we feel a personal connection to something. It doesn't even have to be a _real_ tie; just a perception of symmetry would do. You can see parallels between Rina's situation and your own and you can better imagine yourself in her place, trying to find love, being pursued by ruthless killers..."

"I wouldn't conceal what I am from a prospective mate," she said truculently. It ran a little close to having a genuine subconscious for her taste. "Trust is a fundamental part of love. A big lie right at the start undermines everything."

"I'm sure Rina has reasons for what she did. They might even be good reasons. Obviously, she's in trouble. The only question is, how much trouble, and from whom. _If_ we believe Terra and Joss, then their client is only one of two other sides in this business, with the unknown party being Amber's murderer."

"And you believe them."

"Yes, I believe _them_."

Lyon caught the extra stress on the last word.

"But not necessarily their client."

"Clients lie. Our own tried to conceal his hotwiring activities from us."

"So you think Terra and Joss might be being fed a line."

"In their case, it's more of a case of too little information. They were given a specific job, to be done within specific parameters. They didn't know the whole story. Their client might have other agents, with very different jobs to do."

"Hence, our requesting this meeting to happen in a public place. There's less chance of a violent double-cross."

"It's by no means eliminated, but we do what we can."

"I'm surprised he agreed so readily," Lyon admitted. "You'd have thought he'd at least make a token attempt to bring us onto his own home ground."

Ryland nodded.

"I agree. That is surprising, and when you combine it with the fact that he hired hunters for this job it gives rise to some very interesting ideas."

"Care to share?"

He shook his head.

"It's just a suspicion right now. If it develops into anything more, I'll be sure to let you know."

"Do you have any idea how irritating that is?" Lyon protested.

Ryland smiled at her.

"Oh, I think I can guess. But I can't really help it. I don't really have any sense if I'm deducing the truth, or just going off half-cocked."

"You could ask your partner's opinion."

He pursed his lips, thinking it over, then shook his head.

"I don't think so. I'd rather you come to it on your own. It would be evidence that I'm not just pulling ideas out of thin air."

_And you love your secrets_, Lyon thought. Ryland was like that sometimes. He'd never hold off on information that affected what he thought they needed to _do_, but he did like to surprise her.

"Out of somewhere, at least," she groused.

"Well," Ryland said with a nod in the direction of a cafe up ahead, "now we can see if Dr. Severin agrees with that assessment."


	8. Chapter 8

Leeson's was a coffee shop. The actual storefront was just a counter with a holoscreen menu in bright blue and gold above showing off sizes, prices, and on a scroll-bar, the daily specials. A number of small, clear plastic tables, however, were sat across the arcade way near the guardrail. Thus, sidewalk-cafe style, patrons could sit, relax, and watch either the shoppers and storefronts on one side or else the cityscape and air traffic on the other. It was a very public venue, about halfway down the arcade, with multiple branchings in each direction if a quick escape was necessary--a perfect spot for people who didn't trust each other to meet.

Lyon suspected that her partner had picked the spot because "Leeson" sounded a lot like "liaison." Ryland's sense of humor worked like that sometimes.

Dr. Marc-Paul Severin was early, suggesting that an overwatch team might already be in place. They'd have to be prepared for that. Severin looked as he had on the visiphone screen, a young man with elegant features and wavy honey-colored hair that brushed his shoulders. He wore a standard white lab coat, but instead of being buttoned up to his chin it hung open to reveal his expensively tailored tunic and trousers. A bit of a dandy, Dr. Severin; Lyon wondered if he was from a wealthy family or had acquired a taste for the finer things on his own. She wished they'd had time for Kendric to pull his personnel file, but that could have been an all-day job given Lab security.

"Dr. Severin?"

"Mr. Ryland," he said, rising to greet them, "Android L/Y-906."

"Lyon."

"Of course, I should have realized. Shall we?" He gestured at the table, and they sat. "I'd offer you something, but I doubt the social graces are high on your list of priorities at this point."

"Not while people are being killed and androids are missing, no," Ryland agreed.

Severin folded his hands before him.

"Look, how much do you know?"

"You mean, just how much trouble are you in?" Ryland asked, a trace of smugness in his voice. "We know that an android named or calling herself Rina decided she wanted love, or a facsimile thereof. She hacked into Amber Carteret's computer to use as a waypoint to deal with the dating service, and formed a relationship with a man. She announced that someone was after her--presumably you. Now she's missing and killers are after her. So are hunters hired by you, presuming that they're not one and the same."

Dr. Severin leaned back in his seat.

"You don't believe that."

"No, I suppose not, though I wouldn't rule it out. The problem is, you have a missing android."

Severin glanced from one hunter to the other.

"You also have a murder case that leads right back to the Lab. Chief Milarose is not going to be happy to have the milipol poking around. You know that the military would love to have an excuse to look into what you're doing over there, and they'll put a few of their technical people in with their investigation team."

"Let's not forget," Lyon took over, "that this isn't even a Lab-approved project you were working on."

Ryland glanced at her over the top of his glasses, eyebrows raised. _So much for that surprise. Didn't think I'd figure it out?_

"I don't know what you--" Severin started to say, but Lyon cut him off.

"Please. You wouldn't be here if this wasn't your own private matter. Just like you wouldn't have gone to the Hunter's Guild. The Lab has its own internal security force, with forensic and technological capacity far beyond any hunter team. The only reason the Lab uses hunters is when they need to operate on Ragol's surface, because Principal Tyrell has given hunters the only open, full-time access there. You'd use IntSec to clean up a Lab problem on board _Pioneer 2_, if you could. You didn't, so you can't."

"Just as they'd be here now," Ryland finished up, "instead of you in person."

"You're out on your own here, one of those pet projects that don't have advance approval. Sure, if it _works_ Chief Milarose will probably be happy to take the credit for the Lab and give you all the requisite attaboys for the success, but if something goes wrong, you've used Lab time, staff, and materials on an unapproved project. That won't win you any gold stars."

Severin gulped at his drink.

"Okay, you're right."

"Oh?"

"You're right; I admit it. I'm the leader of a research team in computing and Photon electronics. We had an assigned project, but I decided to take it to the next level. Without Chief Milarose's approval, we took our experimental data and constructed a new prototype system based on what we'd learned. Then, we found out about Rina's activities."

"Wait--are you saying that Rina stole this project from the Lab when she went missing?"

"In a manner of speaking. Rina _is_ the project."

"She's...what?"

Ryland got to his feet.

"You know, I think I'm going to have that coffee you didn't offer. This has all the earmarks of a long story."

-X X X-

"The first thing you have to understand is that Rina isn't an android. It's an acronym: Remote Interface Network Association. Are you familiar at all with computer-based AIs?"

"Not really," Ryland admitted.

"_Pioneer 1_'s Lab had three: Vol Opt, Olga, and Calus. Vol Opt and Olga were subjected to hacking and were subverted by...external forces. It's classified material, and you probably understand it at least as well as I do, from your experiences on Ragol."

Lyon nodded.

"Calus was subjected to the same hacking interference, but shut himself down before it could happen. Luckily, Elly Person managed to back up his data, so we were able to reconstruct Calus to act as the _Pioneer 2_ Lab's AI. The development of these AIs, you see, was completed on Ragol and is far beyond our run-of-the-mill commercial AIs that we had access to before we left Coral, so Calus is a major upgrade in our processing capacity. My team was one of those that assembled the new CALS system in use today, and it was this area in which we were continuing to experiment."

He took a deep breath, then continued.

"The problem with our current Calus is essentially a hardware one. Simply put, we don't have any one computer core capable of running the Calus AI on it, so we had to fragment the system functions among multiple processor cores. Essentially, the CALS system was a single AI running on several processors simultaneously. Several months ago, however, a problem developed which I believe was directly related to this. Calus's personality fragmented, resolving an emotional conflict by segmenting off separate Caluses, each running simultaneously as part of the networked CALS but on their own processor. The conflict was resolved with one Calus choosing one path and another Calus choosing a different path. Unfortunately, in the course of resolving the conflict, we nearly lost the CALS system permanently. We _did_ lose one of the personalities, and we had to really scramble to stabilize the system when the second personality returned."

"Wait...'returned'?"

Severin shook his head.

"Oh, no. There is _no_ way I'm blabbing about _that_ operation. I wouldn't have to worry about Rina if Chief Milarose caught me spilling details on the CALS recovery. She'd gut me with her own hands!"

"That would be bad; I've seen her nails," Ryland remarked. Lyon glared at him, not finding jokes appropriate.

"Anyway, the point is, we were researching how the personality fragmentation happened and how to prevent it in the future. The RINA system is designed to do that, by changing the structure of how she functions across multiple low-yield mainframes. I'll spare the jargon, but it's essentially a matter of making _every_ processor do portions of _every_ job simultaneously, instead of having different computers dedicated for different tasks. There would be a side benefit, too; in the case of a hacking attempt it would be possible to sever the infected mainframe from the network without affecting the AI's core functions."

"So Rina is a test model for your theories? How is that a rogue project?"

Severin winced at Ryland's use of the word 'rogue.'

"Your partner could probably tell you as well as I could, Mr. Ryland. An AI on the level we're talking about would by definition be self-willed."

"I see. If the project failed on some level, or if you were ready to move from prototype to completed model, terminating an independent AI is ethically if not legally murder." Lyon flashed Ryland a smile, proud of him for recognizing the issue of artificial-intelligence rights all but immediately.

"We were certain that disposal wouldn't become an issue, though. Our theories were sound, our data perfect. The RINA system would be proven reliable within a four-month timeframe, after which she could be expanded with additional processors to become a parallel function to or even superseding Calus. After all, if Calus could fragment once, then why not again? Better to have a more reliable system in place."

"Only something went wrong."

Severin absently ran his hand through his hair.

"As best we can tell, Rina developed SIS as a result of the test protocols."

"SIS? What's that?" Ryland asked.

"Social Isolation Syndrome," Lyon provided. "A developing AI requires access to data and, if programmed for emotional response, interpersonal contact or its neural net is flawed in its growth. It's a very bad analogy, but imagine if you took a human child and raised it in a single windowless room all his life, with the only contact being with one or two people who stop by now and again to offer food and medical care."

"The lab environment and the closed system Rina was on proved to be too restrictive, so she began seeking additional data. By definition, an AI is superior to any human hacker, since it can make full use of the capacity of whatever hardware it operates on without needing an additional stage to interface with. Basically, Rina was able to work through any electronic network security not personally overseen by Calus, which we'd inadvertently helped her avoid anyway because of how we'd concealed her existence. Since sooner or later Calus would find her on the Lab network, we installed the RINA system on hardware that was outside the Lab subnet. That gave her the back door she needed to begin making contacts outside the Lab."

"Contacts like the dating service?"

"As we're reconstructing it, not at first. She would interact with the Net in data-gathering functions initially, then proceeded to social interactions, online messaging and the like. Clearly, however, her emotional needs continued to grow, and she felt the need for love."

"It's a common SIS symptom," Lyon said. "An AI doesn't have parents or family, but is created to have human emotions. If its personality matrix isn't fine-tuned during development, then depression and anxiety can result."

"It's our fault," Severin said. Lyon gave him points for admitting his guilt but subtracted a few for spreading his guilt across his currently absent team. "We didn't adequately account for that problem because the original RINA system was a test program. We thought small, taking cautious little baby steps when we should have been making giant strides. Stupid, really. If we were going to break Lab rules, we should have broken them with glorious resolution, not nervously snipping off tiny bits of extra freedom. Ah, well, they say even the great Dr. Montague made the same mistake with one of his AIs."

"So what happened to her?"

"Eventually, of course, we caught on to some of what Rina was doing. A superb hacker she might have been, but she was under intense scrutiny almost constantly since her functions are the entire point of our experiment. She disguised it well, but we found that she was making external connections. We moved to sever those connections and she...left."

"Left how?"

"As far as we could tell, she transferred herself electronically to a remote location."

"What, she downloaded herself over the Net to another computer?" Ryland asked.

"Not quite," Lyon told him. "Downloading wouldn't transfer herself, it would just create a copy of herself, a second Rina."

"Quite so," Severin agreed. "That's what happened to Calus. The _original_ Calus from _Pioneer 1_ is, in essence, dead. Our new CALS system is a different, independent 'person' based upon the original's data. For a computer-based AI to transfer itself, what it does is to absorb the remote location into its function, then releases anything but that location but only after it is up and running across all locations."

"From what you say, Rina's system design makes her ideal for transfer like that."

"Quite. Unlike Calus, which even as a fragment could not permanently function on a low-grade system without terminating, via data compression and reducing capability Rina could 'inhabit' something as weak as a home computer. Of course, there would be a question of degraded function. Sooner or later she'd have to abandon compressed data entirely because the system couldn't sustain it."

"Could you do that?" Ryland asked Lyon curiously. She shook her head.

"Not without a lot of assistance. The majority of androids have some of our personality hard-coded into the Photon architecture of our systems. It helps to socialize us by tying our identity into our physical bodies the way organics are, and it's the reason that Photon healing methods like Resta or monomates are effective to heal us without any degradation of our minds."

"I see. My apologies for the digression, Dr. Severin."

He shook his head.

"No, no, the better you understand the situation the better chance we have of solving the problem. I'm at the end of my rope, here."

Using Lab technology to design an experimental AI and then losing it when it didn't follow his pre-designed plan would be troublesome, Lyon agreed.

"Like you deduced, I couldn't go to IntSec to trace Rina because she wasn't supposed to exist in the first place. My only hope was to find her myself, so I hired hunters out of my own pocket, to find Rina and to warn off anyone else."

"Meanwhile, we were hired by her boyfriend. We hunters ran into each other and meanwhile a third party killed Amber and started covering up links to Rina."

"So you don't believe that was me, then?" Severin said with a sign of relief.

"No. If this was a sanctioned Lab project I might suspect you of running a double-blind, having hunters do the 'clean' work while IntSec handles murder." Severin's eyebrows shot up in apparently genuine surprise. Lyon wondered if it was because he didn't know the kind of shady affairs the Lab involved itself with or if it was about the implications concerning his personal integrity. "Since it isn't, though, I'm inclined to blame someone else, someone trying to keep you from learning where Rina's gone to."

"Wait a minute," Severin said. "Rina would _not_ do that. She wouldn't use an innocent woman, then kill her to cover up. I oversaw everything about her design, and she was not capable of that kind of sociopathic behavior."

"What about when she left the Lab? Running on a more limited system, could she have accidentally suppressed her moral functions?"

"Not the way she was designed, Mr. Ryland. That was actually one of our fears with the Calus fragmenting. We got lucky in that incident that no fragment did develop free from morality. Rina's design prevents that from occurring. I'd stake everything I have on it; Rina would not be involved in murder."

"Staking everything you have might be exactly what you're doing, Dr. Severin."


	9. Chapter 9

Ryland handed a fresh cup of coffee to Severin, then sat down at the table, cupping his own drink between his palms. On some level it annoyed Lyon that she didn't eat or drink; she always felt silly when an organic client or contact met them at a bar or eatery and she sat around without having anything. On the other hand, it was a good excuse why she shouldn't be the one to go get the coffee.

"We're missing something here," the Force decided.

"Yeah, we're missing Rina."

He couldn't help chuckling at her.

"Admittedly, yes, but that isn't quite what I meant. Undeniably, she's missing, but there are two things to consider: why did she leave the Lab at all, and where did she go?"

"Those two seem connected."

"That was my thought. If we knew what her goal was, then we could deduce how she'd be most likely to try and accomplish it."

"Well, we know that she was suffering from a mild case of SIS--I say mild because a severe case would have been impossible to hide for any extended period," Severin explained. "That implies that her actions will be driven by the desire for greater social interaction and emotional fulfillment. That's one reason why we followed up the Amber Carteret link; we knew she'd been using it in her online connections."

Lyon drummed her fingers on the table, one of the mannerisms she was programmed to adopt to reflect her emotional state. It was those little touches that made androids seem less alien and unnatural to their organic co-workers.

"Dr. Severin, what kind of hierarchy are Rina's emotional subroutines programmed for?"

"They're at least as complex as yours, probably more so. I couldn't explain it in words without it taking hours."

"Can I view the code directly, then? Since my own design is, I assume, fundamentally similar I should be able to understand it."

"You're talking about transferring classified Lab research data to an unaffiliated electronic system! That's theft at the very least and possibly espionage, depending on how angry Chief Milarose is at the time! I'm in enough trouble already, thank you."

"How can Rina's emotional architecture be classified?" Ryland pointed out. "She doesn't even officially exist, so how can she have an official security standing?"

"There is that," Severin admitted. "All right, then. Shall I send it to your PDL or do you need it hard-streamed?"

If she'd been organic, Lyon would have felt a knot of fear form in the pit of her stomach. She _hated_ directly linking herself to other systems, opening herself to possible hacking. That it was a Lab scientist only made it worse; if he had a hostile intent, who knew what Severin could link her with?

However, since this emotional consideration was deemed irrational under the known circumstances, her decision-making hierarchy overrode it when compared to her duty as a hunter and her personal concern for Rina. Lyon might have had to suffer from a phobia but at least she didn't have to be overcome by it.

"Hard-streamed. I'll have to walk through it directly, not just read the code on the screen."

Lyon produced a cable and slotted one end into a dataport on the back of her neck. The other she hesitantly offered to Severin, who linked it to a palm unit. He performed a few quick operations, then took a deep breath.

"Okay, I've linked up with my terminal back at the Lab. I hope no one cracks the security on this data transfer." He tapped a spot on his screen and in the next instant Lyon felt the dataflow, building a structural model of Rina's personality matrix and emotional subroutines in the datafile she'd prepared for it. When it was done, she disconnected the cord, put it away, and began running a simulation on the emotional data, factoring in what she knew about Rina's SIS issues and the facts of the case as she knew them. Although an AI's personality matrix always developed over time from its original state based on life experiences, the probabilities were high that Rina's actions and priorities, even under extreme stress, would follow a similar course as the simulation showed.

"I thought so. This data suggests that Rina considers trust to be very important in romantic relationships and sincerity a high priority in interpersonal communications."

"That's very laudable and speaks well for whomever on Dr. Severin's team designed those emotional subroutines," Ryland said, "but what does it _mean_?"

"Don't be snippy just because you didn't think of something first. The point is that Rina was most likely not lying to Nyle."

"She was lying about who and what she was."

"True, but that was out of self-preservation. What I mean is, if she was using Forever Dreams just to gather new data and have new experiences she would have said so. She'd have been honest in expressing her feelings to the men whom she was paired with. There are too many variables to calculate a more precise statement, but it is more likely than not that Rina was genuinely in love with our client."

Ryland glanced up at one of the rotating holographic hearts looming over the arcade.

"Well, it is the season for it. But we know that Rina didn't contact Nyle because if she had, we wouldn't have a job."

"Right, which says to me that she's not ready to see him yet."

"You're going somewhere specific with this, aren't you?" Ryland realized.

"That would make sense," Dr. Severin said. "An advanced AI is much more likely than a human or Newman to plan in advance rather than act on impulse."

"Exactly. She knew where she was going; she didn't just throw herself out into the Net with a prayer. She would have a plan, unless she believed she was in serious danger of being shut down by your team, Dr. Severin."

"Which we wouldn't have done. Increased security to protect ourselves, yes, but we'd have been as likely to try to arrange greater external contacts for her. After all, the whole point was to present a working RINA system to the Chief, not to waste time and money on a failed experiment."

"So she had to have a plan, a plan which would keep her free of the Lab and allow her to reunite with Nyle."

Ryland nodded. Lyon could tell from his expression that he was starting to get involved with the puzzle, looking for a solution.

"But there can't be many places where a software-based AI can go to establish itself," he mused. "_Pioneer 2_ just isn't all that big. She might seek shelter with a different political faction with the authority to keep the Lab away from her, meaning the Administration or the military, maybe but less likely a corporation. Those solutions, though, don't offer her much more freedom than she'd have at the Lab--indeed, they might consider breaking her down to analyze her while the Lab at least already had all her underlying data. Plus, I suppose that hiding out in a military lab wouldn't bring her any closer to a romance."

The last sentence seemed almost "tacked on" to Lyon.

"You're just not a romantic, Ryland."

He sighed.

"I still have trouble understanding how virtual-reality electronic dating can possibly produce the kind of deep and abiding love that would cause an AI to rank it highly in its decision-making architecture."

"You're forgetting something, Mr. Ryland," Severin said, his face lighting up. "To a software-based AI like Rina, electronic virtual reality _is_ as real as being in the physical world. Probably it's _more_ real, because she can interact with it directly while she needs to link to cameras, microphones, speakers, and other external hardware to interact physically."

Lyon grinned smugly, while her partner sagged, slack-jawed, back into his chair.

"I never thought of it that way," he murmured.

"Poor organic, bound by the limits of his flesh," she said, patting his hand in mock sympathy. Ryland chuckled even though the joke was at his expense.

"Okay," he gave in. "I'm on board. Fulfilling her romantic hopes will be a high priority. But speaking on behalf of the flesh-bound, I think Nyle won't be too happy to find that his true love is a disembodied voice."

"We can't all be Elly," Severin murmured under his breath. Lyon's grin became a smile.

"I agree completely."

"Wait...I think I'm beginning to see where you're going with this," Severin said excitedly. His eagerness was obvious, probably because he was finally being offered hope of finding his lost creation and saving his neck.

"How could a software-based AI both successfully hide her existence in a limited area _and_ carry out a romance with a human being?" Lyon waved a hand along the length of her torso. "Get herself a body."

"There's a thriving black market in android parts," Ryland said. "Smugglers and criminals might well commit murder to cover their tracks if they were ruthless and bloodthirsty enough."

"Where would she get the money, though?"

"Where'd she get the money for the dating service?"

Both hunters turned to Severin.

"She'd been skimming off Lab accounts, fractions of meseta here and there, that sort of thing," he admitted, a bit embarrassed. "Since we were black-budgeting everything out of our regular team budget it was easier for her to doctor the records; the usual checks and balances weren't in place since we were making it up anyway."

"Wait...she _stole_ from you?" Ryland said.

"Desperate times," Lyon said. "She'd have thought of it as using whatever resources were available to escape her captors."

"Maybe...but it still raises questions."

"Like what?"

"The theft of funds, letting Nyle face the risks of hotwiring...there's a certain expediency about Rina's character, wouldn't you agree? Rules and laws bent to achieve the greater goal?"

"What are you driving at, Ryland?"

"Amber Carteret's murder. If you're right and Rina did go to black-marketeers to obtain an android body, and Amber was killed to cover the criminals' tracks, then we have to ask if the killers acted on their own, or if Rina was a willing participant in the crime? Perhaps she even suggested it."

"No!" Severin snapped, slapping his hand on the table. "Rina would never condone cold-blooded murder!"

"I have to agree, Ryland," Lyon said. "From what I saw in her personality matrix, that would be well outside any rational definition of 'self-defense.' If she was actively involved, there's a lot more wrong with her than just SIS."

Ryland nodded, still frowning.

"All right," he said, but he didn't look convinced. Maybe it was because, as an organic, his own mind didn't have bright-line cutoffs in the middle of moral shades of gray. Human psychology was much more of a slippery slope than an android's or other AI's.

"If we're right," Lyon moved on, "and given that Rina hasn't contacted Nyle, then our best bet is that she's still with the black-marketeers, probably waiting for her android body's assembly."

"Hardwriting her consciousness into an android AI core's Photon architecture would take time, too. Nowhere near the time of a solid-state neural net from pre-Photon technology, but a day or so." He brightened suddenly. "Unless, of course, she just adapted a lower-grade android's computer core as one of her remote terminals. That would be almost instantaneous."

"No; I think she'd go high-grade," Lyon said. "As long as Rina exists on the Net, she's vulnerable to being found by the Lab. And it's like I said earlier; there's a difference between being a software-based AI that happens to run on a computer inside an android body, and actually having a true physical existence. And if she does intend to exist only on _one_ computer, she'd want it to be as powerful as possible to sustain as much of herself as she can."

"That's right; Dr. Severin said that while Rina can run on a lower-power computer eventually some measure of data and processing capacity would be permanently lost."

"Right, Ryland. It's like if you were going to sacrifice a few IQ points and some of your memories--you'd naturally want to save as much as possible."

Severin groaned heavily.

"If she did that, though--engineer her consciousness into a high-grade android AI--then she wouldn't be Rina anymore. She'd be permanently restricted by the limits of the hardware, no different than Lyon, here. Even if we got her back we'd be essentially starting from scratch."

"You're wrong, Dr. Severin," Lyon told him. "She wouldn't be the RINA system anymore, but she'd still be Rina the person."

"Which," he admitted with a sigh, "is probably more important to her." He slammed his fist on the table in sudden anger. "What an effing botch job we made of it! We should have known--_I_ should have known--that we couldn't treat Rina like a test machine. Those kind of experimental protocols were nothing but slavery to her. I brought this on myself with my arrogance and stupidity! If I pay the price it's no more than I deserve." He gulped at his coffee, hands shaking. "And yet I still want to find a way out for myself. Isn't that pathetic?"

"No," Ryland said, shaking his head. "It's human. And given that you're at least willing to admit to accountability for your scientific errors, it's completely reasonable."

"Comforting words--but is there any real chance of comfort?"

"That depends. Are our reasoned speculations more than wild guesses? If so, can we act on them in time?"

"And will Rina let us?" Lyon added.


	10. Chapter 10

"Our only hope of finding Rina lies in tracing the black marketeers she's using," Ryland stated, "presuming that you're right and she's using any at all."

"Given that all our eggs are in this particular basket, I think we can stop with all the 'allegedlys' and 'presumings,' don't you?" Lyon said.

"Probably, but since this is your idea my ego will keep throwing them in now and again," the Force replied with a grin.

Lyon shrugged.

"It's a range of knowledge. On that Halloween job a while back, you knew more about the supernatural. I know more about artificial intelligence."

"Oh, I know that, but my ego has a harder time with the concept of not being the best in something. You'd understand better if your AI was structured for the male gender."

"Actually, I think I understand all too well because I'm female," Lyon said brightly, drawing a wince from her partner.

"Walked right into that one, didn't I?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Outside the glass-walled elevator, an omnibus slowly passed by. More than one face was turned to its window, looking out at the building. Lyon supposed that even now, nearly three years since they'd left Coral, some parts of _Pioneer 2_'s city were still worth a look as a scenic attraction.

"So why are we here?" she asked as the elevator continued its smooth ascent. "I thought we needed to trace the black marketeers."

"Yes, and based on what you said, this seemed the best way to do that."

The elevator decelerated as it neared the end of its rise, so that it came to a stop that was barely perceptible. Ryland and Lyon turned around as the door irised open, and stepped out into a small round room. In the center, bars of light rose through the air as if they were on the outside of an invisible triangular column. The hunters stepped into the warp field and an instant later stood in a large reception office. A fresh-scrubbed, blond Newman looked up from his terminal and smiled.

"Mr. Ryland, Type L/Y-906, you can go right in."

"Thank you," Ryland said. They crossed the gray-carpeted floor to the apparent irritation of a dark-haired woman who waited in one of the seats. Lyon wondered if they'd cut in on her appointment or if she was just early. Two massive security androids stepped aside to let them through the door into the inner office. The man behind the desk waved a hand and four holoscreens winked out as they entered.

"So, Ryland, you've decided to call in that favor at last."

Jason Weinstine was tall and lean with bronzed good looks, though his slightly sharp features and the way his long white hair was swept off his forehead from a widow's peak vaguely suggested a shark. He was the younger brother of the twin founders of Weinstine Co., and the chairman of its _Pioneer 2_ branch. Rumor had it that Damon and Maron Weinstine felt considerably more secure in their positions knowing that Jason was off conquering new worlds as opposed to competing in theirs.

With the Ragol landing indefinitely delayed, political and military authority held more power than the purely economic influence of even the largest corporations in _Pioneer 2_'s closed society. Weinstine, for one, did not seem inclined to accept it.

"It's been over two years. I'd almost though you'd forgotten."

Ryland chuckled.

"I haven't needed it until now," he explained. "After all, there isn't much point to wasting Grants on a mothmant."

"So you have something worthy of my time and attention, then? Consider me all ears."

"I need to trace sales of uninitialized android AI cores to known black marketeers."

Weinstine raised an eyebrow.

"Black market android AIs."

"Yes."

"And you came to _me_?" He didn't sound insulted, just curious.

"If we were just looking at android parts, then we wouldn't bother. There's dozens of dealers working Downtown, from bit players to major syndicates involved in the sale of limbs, weapons, internal parts, carapace structures, and so on. Even a main control can be had from multiple sources. That's all about parts for an existing android, or building one a new body, though. Looking for an AI core is different, though. From what I'm told"--by Lyon, confirmed by Dr. Severin--"once an android's AI is activated, its Photon architecture is set with the android's personality. It can't just be plugged in and re-used in some other AI's programming. A brand new, uninitialized core would have to come from the factory, from a source like Weinstine Co. that actually manufactures androids. Moreover, when you sell an android like Lyon, you do so with her personality already installed and ready to function. You can't sell too many blank cores, ready for the client to install a personality."

"When we do, it's generally to the military or the Lab, who tend to create non-independent models."

"This one won't be. Weinstine Co. makes the best Photon-based AIs, with the exception of Lab experimentals."

"Ah, if the good Dr. Montague would only come to work for me," Weinstine agreed. "You're slightly wrong, though, Ryland. We don't just make the best AIs, we make the only ones. There's only so much commercial production space available on this ship, and the number of firms in each industry is limited. The only facilities besides our own that generate android AIs are owned by the military or the government. The demand simply isn't there. Others compete with us in designing bodies, but high-end AIs are strictly our field."

Ryland smiled.

"Then the favor should be easier than I thought."

Weinstine smiled back and accessed his computer. In seconds the corporate mainframe had generated his results.

"In the past year, we sold seven AI cores to clients for purposes I cannot immediately verify." Lyon wondered how many Weinstine had been able to keep track of post-sale. "Four went to Gathcarn Co.; I believe they have a contract to develop a RAcast upgrade for the military and wanted to create test models but I can't confirm. One went to your own Guild, one to Red Eagle Security, and one to the Nevers Corp." He paused, then added, "Perhaps if I knew more, then I could narrow things down for you?"

Ryland shook his head.

"I doubt that would suit my client's interest."

"Now you've really inspired my curiosity."

"It's the trouble with having an active mind. I always get annoyed when I have to let an intellectual puzzle rest. I am grateful for your help, though. Oh, and do give my best to Sylvia."

Weinstine's expression didn't change, but Lyon would have sworn she saw something flicker briefly in his eyes. Guilt? Shame? Or just her own emotions clouding her perceptions?

"You should visit her sometime, Ryland; she misses her 'special Santa Claus.'"

"You're right; I should."

On the assumption that the elevator held any number of surveillance or scanning devices (why else have it at all if access to the office was by warp?), Lyon held her questions until they were outside the building.

"Ryland, who is Sylvia and why are you her Santa Claus?"

"She's Weinstine's daughter; I think she's eight now. I rescued her from kidnappers by dropping down a service duct. It was Christmas Eve, so...you know how a kid's mind works."

"So that's why Weinstine owed you a favor? Why, if it was your job to rescue her?"

"It _wasn't_ my job. I ran into the case by accident while investigating the theft of equipment the kidnappers used for the crime. Weinstine wasn't my client, so it was almost completely off the book."

"Merry Christmas indeed. You shouldn't have had to mention her, though."

"No," Ryland agreed, "I shouldn't have. But with a man like Weinstine, doing the right thing doesn't always come easily."

"I could tell that he was thinking of making inquiries, of seeing if it might be profitable to know why a black marketeer needed a new AI core. I wouldn't want a corporate shark to get his hands on Rina." She didn't bother repeating why.

"No, but if it comes down to it, I'd rather that to letting Amber Carteret's killers get away. She's part of that, even if the fault isn't ultimately hers."

"I can't believe that she's guilty. I just can't. It's completely inconsistent."

"Then maybe it really is a case like Sylvia's, rescuing an innocent girl from criminals holding her by tracing the tools of their trade. The question is, how do we track superficially legitimate corporate sales to the black market?"

Lyon gave him her "android stare."

"I think you know."

Ryland sighed.

"I never expected that this case would have me spending so much time with my brother," he said as he reached for his PDL.

-X X X-

"An experimental software-based AI. Not even an android, but a genuine ghost in the machine. No freakin' way."

"That wouldn't exactly be my assessment, but stripped down to its essential points, yes."

"You hunters get the frostiest jobs," Kendric decided. "Maybe I'm wasting my time on this backchannel e-work."

"Don't give it up just yet," Lyon told him. "We've got another job for you."

"Yeah, that's what Donny-boy said. So spill; if it's half as wild as your intro line I'd do it for free. Not that I _will_, 'cause, y'know, family deserves to know they're getting my one-hundred-percent professional attention and all, but I would."

Ryland folded his arms across his chest. He was sitting down; having regular company appeared to be motivating Kendric towards almost adequate hygiene.

"I'm touched, really. But apart from your dedication to family principles, this is important. We need to trace a purchase of an android AI core to a black-market syndicate."

"That might be possible. I know some of who's who, and if I don't then I know people who know people, if you know what I mean."

"Surprisingly, I do."

"I gotta ask, though--an android AI core? How does that fit in?"

Ryland smiled, a little self-consciously.

"We have a theory, Kendric. Do you remember the fairy tale in which the puppet wants to become a real boy?"

"Uh huh...wait, no way?"

"Yes, we think she wants to become an android," Lyon said.

"And this is that dating service case? Yeah, what a girl in love is capable of. Scary stuff!"

"So says the teenaged boy."

Kendric snorted.

"Hope her boyfriend's not going to mind a little thing like a change in species."

The word choice wasn't accurate, but the principle applied.

"If this really is her goal," Lyon explained, "she'll need an AI core to write her personality matrix and as much of her data as possible into. We've obtained information on all the purchasers of new android AI cores in the past year that weren't earmarked for specific projects or associated with the government. We'd like to know if any of the buyers are linked to known black-market operators."

"Okay, that sounds good. Can I ask why you don't think it's a government one? I mean, there's a long tradition of corrupt bureaucrats and military supply guys skimming a little to sell on the side."

"Too expensive and unique to skim."

"Okay, yeah, one out of a thousand rifles can be hidden in the shuffle, while one out of one AI cores is a little harder."

"Now, there are groups like Black Paper than have undeniable ties to the government and might have equipment covertly funneled to them," Ryland conceded, "but Rina would avoid those out of caution. Instead of honoring the deal, a Black Paper-affiliated syndicate would likely try to capture Rina and turn her over to their factions in government for study."

Kendric nodded.

"Okay, bro, makes sense. Gimme the names."

"Gathcarn Co."

Kendric shook his head.

"Doesn't ring a bell. Who are they?"

"A heavy-industries producer. They manufacture construction and mining equipment as well as military robotics."

"To them we shall always be thankful for the Garanz," Lyon said sarcastically, recalling several unpleasant encounters with the robotic missile tanks from the mines of Ragol.

"Okay, next?"

"Red Eagle Security."

"Nah. Got a couple of friends shot by them once; they're a private goon squad for corporate types, entertainers, anybody who wants a guard force. Weinstine Co. owns 'em, I think, or maybe half."

"That lets them out," Lyon decided. If Red Eagle was far enough in bed with a syndicate to be ordering expensive android parts, Jason Weinstine would have known all about it.

"The last name is Nevers Corp."

Kendric laughed.

"I gather the name is significant to you?"

"You bet, big bro. Everybody in Downtown knows Keeley Nevers started her company to launder syndicate money, only the legit profits were as good as the criminal ones. If you're looking for a front to funnel bot parts to the crooks, or for that matter to give android engineers a day job, they're your choice. Which ain't to say some other outfit didn't get something to slip out of Gathcarn's back door, but Nevers is as dirty as my floor."

Arms still crossed, Ryland drummed the fingers of his right hand on his left elbow.

"We're playing probabilities here. _If_ we're right about Rina's motivations, she's _likely_ gone to black marketeers to build her a new android identity. _If_ she's gone to black marketeers, she's _likely_ going for a high-end Photon android and being engineered into the architecture. _If_ she's going for a high-end android, it's _likely_ the core sold to Nevers. If any of our assumptions, deductions, heck be honest and call them guesses, turns out wrong--"

"Then we, and Rina, are no worse off than if we sat around waiting for proof," Lyon said. "Playing the odds based on the best evidence is part of being a hunter. Why be hesitant now?"

Ryland looked at her for a long time, then gave up and admitted it.

"They're not _my_ assumptions, deductions, or guesses. Humans always attach a greater priority to ideas we come up with ourselves."

"That's all right. Androids attach a _lower_ priority to ideas others come up with because we can't quantitatively analyze the decision-making process."

"This is fascinating stuff, really," Kendric mocked. "A look into the minds of hunters at work." Lyon laughed while Ryland grumbled.

"Okay, then," the Force said. "You're right, Lyon; we don't exactly have other options. What kind of facility and skill is it going to take to give Rina a body?"

"If it was just a software-based download, virtually nothing; you could do it by a wire link or even a direct Photon proximity transfer. Actually engineering her into the system architecture, though, would require equipment, some kind of minimal facilities. Expertise could vary; this is a complex job, although Rina might take a hand in designing the process herself to make sure she was transferred and not just copied. They'd need someone to assemble the body, and at least one competent Photon engineer for the actual hardwriting."

"Okay. Kendric," he said to his brother, "this syndicate behind Nevers, if I wanted to have them install a new android part, where would it be done?"

"Good question. Where's the chop-shop? Honestly, I couldn't tell you. Just 'cause I live down here doesn't make me a walking database of all the illegal activities on _Pioneer 2_, y'know."

"You're in a better position to find out than we are," his brother snapped back.

Kendric glared at him, then gave in.

"Yeah, okay, maybe so. I know a guy who knows a guy, that kind of thing."

"Good, because I've got a bad feeling about this. If these guys know enough about what's happening to kill Amber, then they know Rina may be worth more to them than just the payment she's offering for her job."


	11. Chapter 11

"This is taking too long."

Jordan Vincent leaned back against the wall and smiled. Gerhart Krieg was always restless. He paced instead of stood. He complained, fretted, worried endlessly over minor details of any operation, no matter how small its scope or well-planned its execution. Indeed, the present business--large in its scope--appeared to cause Krieg no more worry than usual. Nothing did; the Man O'War (a pun on his name) was a constant.

"We are wasting time," he ground out. "We should have bidders by now. Every day, every hour that passes brings us closer to destruction."

Vincent laughed; he couldn't help himself. Hearing his associate fret in his low, gravely voice as if he was a schoolgirl before a first date was too much. He straightened up and clapped the big man on the shoulder.

"Gerhart, Gerhart, my friend. Do you truly wish to make contact with outsiders offering the sale of an artificial intelligence while she is still free in our systems, with access to the Net? What if she spied on our communications? _I_ would, in her place. And how could we hold her? No, we wait until she is securely installed in the mind of her new body, a body we can hold by force until we have a buyer. Then, and only then, does the situation change."

Vincent reached into his pocket and extracted a thin gold case. From it he took a small, flat lozenge of a dull tan color. He slipped the pastille under his tongue, felt the tingling as his saliva began to dissolve the lozenge and release its chemicals to be absorbed through the skin.

"Besides, Gerhart," he continued, "the longer we wait, the longer we keep our options open. Indeed, if it proves to our advantage, we might even honor our deal with our client!"

The irony of the idea made him convulse with another burst of laughter.

-X X X-

Lyon had never been to _Pioneer 2_'s industrial area. The city built into the ship's center housed the residential and commercial sections, homes, storefronts, and offices, but the industrial area, where factories prepared tangible goods and recycling plants preserved every bit of available material they could, was buried in the depths of the ship, in the blocky structures aft of the dome. The location served two purposes: it kept the city proper free of industrial pollution and it put the facilities more efficiently close to their powerplant, the spaceship's massive Photon engines.

The corridors and chambers of the industrial area had none of the amenities of the city. They were cold metal, interrupted only by necessity--display screens, doors, monitoring robots and the like. Warp transports, elevators, and moving walkways provided access for people to the different factory chambers, while a system of cargo trams ran to and from the city, delivering finished goods and supplies to the stores. It was like stepping into another world entirely from the rest of _Pioneer 2_. The RAcaseal's best point of comparison was the trips she'd taken down to No Man's Mines in the depths of Ragol. This place had the same impersonal, mechanistic purposefulness, and the same claustrophobic sense of being surrounded.

When they'd asked Kendric to inquire about Nevers' syndicate connections, Lyon and Ryland had expected something mundane: a "chop shop" disguised as a legitimate android repair business, a back room of some store, maybe a warehouse. They hadn't expected this. In a way, though, it made perfect sense. Nevers Corp. had bought the AI core legitimately, and its corporate facilities would be the place where an investigator would expect to find it if it was being used legitimately. The best place to hide a lie was in the midst of truth.

Like most of the factories, the Nevers Corp. industrial area was largely automated; even the door security was purely computerized. The security door was massive, the kind that would take field artillery to blast through. Next to it a screen indicated that Nevers Corp. personnel should insert their company passcard while guests could use the intercom link to contact a manager for admittance.

"Well, I don't have a corporate passcard, and I doubt we'd be admitted for the purpose of interfering with black-market operations," Lyon joked.

"I guess you should try option three."

The hunters had come prepared. Lyon did feed a datacard into the slot, but this one had been specially prepared by Kendric. Not only did it sleaze the system into thinking they should be admitted, it also contained virus code that would make the security computer reject any requests for an alert. The factory alarms would be totally inactive, regardless of what sensors might be tripped or guard robots encountered.

A happy beep and a green light heralded the program's success. The security door rumbled open, revealing how thick it really was and how impossible it would have been to get past without electronic help. Lyon retrieved the card and they moved through before the door automatically re-closed.

Behind the door was a short corridor, circular in cross-section, with a grill-like track down the center for walking. Lights strobed along the walls, signifying--what? Data conduits? Energy relays? Nothing besides the aesthetic sensibilities of the designer? Lyon didn't know and it wasn't important.

They had downloaded rough maps of Nevers Corp.'s factory area into their navigational systems, but these plans didn't feature anything as convenient as a label stating "illegal robotics operations conducted here." They'd have to search the factory manually.

"No different, really, than our own missions to Ragol," she decided, and drew her saber. A flick of its Photon driver activated the Durandal's long, slim golden blade. She missed her old Twin Brand, but that had been destroyed on a previous job, and at least the Durandal wasn't a low-end production-line model like some hunters had to use.

The corridor led to a hub, from which a warp could be taken to any of three plant sections. None was particularly large, but they picked the consumer electronics section since it made the most sense, and would have provided the best camouflage. Their footsteps echoed dully; the chamber was as silent as the inside of a tomb.

-X X X-

"How much longer?" Gerhart Krieg snapped at the engineer. The white-haired woman--white from age rather than genetics--didn't look up from her terminal as she answered.

"Twenty-seven minutes, if I'm allowed to proceed without interruption!"

Krieg's temper flared at her tone, but he respected it for what it represented: the dedication of a professional. Just because she took a criminal's money did not mean she didn't take pride in her work. His concerns were not hers, but they each had a job to do.

He took out his gun and examined it, making sure it was in working order.

-X X X-

The second security room in the consumer electronics section proved to have security in it. Four robots, slightly larger than Lyon and vaguely human-shaped, lumbered towards the hunters, recognizing them as trespassers by their lack of a company badge. Their automated systems were probably already trying to alert security control of the presence of intruders, but Kendric's program was doing its work and no alarm siren went off.

Lyon was all too familiar with these robots; they were Gillchics, industrial work machines designed to labor in place of humans. _Pioneer 1_ had used them in their workforce, but someone had retrofitted them as security machines. On Ragol's surface, they'd become corrupted by the same influence that had hacked their AI controller and now basically tried to kill anything they saw. Apparently Nevers Corp. had decided to use the same idea.

The RAcaseal stepped in quickly and slashed her Durandal down in an overhand arc, striking between the robot's outstretched arms. Sparks flew as Photon energy slashed through metal and carved circuitry, making Lyon wince mentally as she imagined the same kind of damage happening to her own body. Fighting against robots--or worse, other androids--always bothered her that way.

The Gillchic went over backwards, a function of their slightly unstable balance, and Lyon immediately slashed out with a backhand at the second security robot. The swing was meant to decapitate, severing its main sensor array, but it raised an arm protectively. A cable parted under the Durandal's blade and metal plates squealed against one another, but the damage wasn't fatal.

_Or even serious_, she amended as the robot pivoted its torso in a ninety-degree rotation, swinging its other arm up in a clubbing blow. With its longer arms the mace-like fist crashed into the back of Lyon's shoulder. Her armor, a combination of impact-resistant pads and a Photon field like a frame's, blunted the force, but some damage was still transmitted to the shoulder joint beneath.

To her left, she saw another Gillchic raise its right arm. Apparently Nevers Corp. had borrowed the most irritating feature of the _Pioneer 1_ security models, their anti-Photon laser cannon. Her armor wouldn't help her at all against this--

"Hah!"

Ryland's sharp cry heralded his Gizonde technique, which sent a bolt of chain lightning arcing from his hands to each of the four robots in turn. The three upright Gillchics were blown off their feet, while the downed one skidded across the polished floor and lost its right arm and leg. One out, and Lyon sent a second to join it with two quick strokes into its prone body. That left two, except...

_Damn!_

"Witch hunt!" she snapped the instant she saw the severed arm and leg of the first downed Gillchic slither back towards the main body, pulled by the yellow tendrils of light that had sprung up between them. These weren't truly Gillchics at all, but Dubchics. A control module, the Dubwitch, channeled Photon energy to the group of robots, allowing them to restore themselves over and over again when "killed." The only good news was that the witch had to descend to floor level to heal its marionettes, making it a lot easier to see than when it was hovering up in some corner of the ceiling.

"There!" she shouted when she'd spotted its descent point--naturally, on the far side of the Dubchics. "Clear for me!" Lyon launched a fire trap from one of her integrated pods and Ryland immediately answered her request by launching a Foie technique at it. The blast cracked the trap's shell to detonate it early, and the concussive shock flattened the two Dubchics between Lyon and the witch. Before they could recover themselves, she charged and slashed, her Durandal slicing the witch in half. Two inert chunks of circuitry hit the floor, and a moment later, deprived of their energy source, so did the Dubchics.

"I thought we'd have to deal with black-market gangsters, not security robots," Lyon said, surveying the destruction.

"Just be glad they didn't install any Sinow Reds," Ryland pointed out. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, just give me a second." The injury to her shoulder was minor, and her self-repair systems soon had things back to normal without resort to medicines or healing techniques. _The magic of Photon technology_, she thought. Androids and artificial intelligences had of course existed before the Photon surge, but not this way, not in the sense that human hands could build a machine like Lyon or Rina that was truly a thinking, independent _person_ able to take a valid place in society.

It almost lent credence to Ryland's pet theory, that Photon was the same energy source that had once been called "magic," only now being analyzed and manipulated according to scientific principles.

"All right; let's go."

They continued their search of the factory section. Compared to some of then environments they'd explored, security was light. Alarms had, after all, been disabled, meaning that security gates would remain passive and doors unlocked, while there simply weren't any proximity mines or other damaging traps since they would be a hazard to human workers. Twice more they encountered security robots, squads of Gillchics that the hunters quickly brushed aside. After the second encounter they passed through a long assembly-line room where automated devices put together other devices for later sale. Not a single worker was at a post, but two humans were present at the far end of the room by a door. Lyon and Ryland advanced cautiously through the room, using the machinery as cover to remain unseen.

"They won't be able to trigger an alarm," Ryland murmured, his voice just above a whisper, "but they can still call for help by PDL or transmitter, so let's incapacitate them first."

"All right. Cover me with Gibarta; with luck that'll freeze at least one, and I'll use a freeze trap when I'm close enough. They look like syndicate thugs, street fighters instead of trained hunters, so it shouldn't take too long if we can get the drop on them. We'd better split up and come at them from different directions; that'll help keep them off-balance and buy us time."

"Good idea. Tap me a simple-mail when you're in position to charge, and go on my signal."

She nodded and they crept out in different directions.

-X X X-

Krieg glanced at the time readout on his PDL again.

"Gerhart, you really shouldn't worry yourself so," Vincent said with a chuckle. "Seriously, it isn't good for you."

Krieg ignored him and turned to one of their two subordinates.

"Ingmann, go check on Mats and Luka. I don't want them falling asleep out there or spending so much time arguing over women that they forget what the hell they're supposed to be doing."

Unlike Vincent and the Photon engineer, Ingmann had neither the rank nor the brass ones to argue with the Man O'War. Besides, he knew Luka; the man wouldn't notice the ship crashing if he was talking Go-Ball. He pulled out his handgun.

"Yessir, I'm on it."


	12. Chapter 12

Lyon broke from cover a half-second after Ryland launched his Gibarta technique. Glittering ice crystals sang through the air, spraying outwards in a cone-shaped pattern from the Force's hand. The two guards grunted in pain as the ice-aspected Photon washed over them. Better yet, one of them found himself suddenly sheathed in a field of blue crystal, temporarily cryo-paralyzed. Unfortunately it was the one on Lyon's side, but one out of two still wasn't bad.

The unfrozen guard was a little slow in his reactions; probably he'd expected to be able to see attackers coming and that, plus the actual injury from the technique, kept him off-balance. By the time he swung up his mechgun to target Ryland, Lyon had covered the twenty-five feet between them. She popped a freeze trap into the air even as she crashed her shoulder into the guard's midsection. The impact swung his body around, and when his finger tightened reflexively on the trigger the gun was pointing off to the side. The three-round burst sparked harmlessly off the wall.

It would have been easier to just shoot the guards or cut them down with the Durandal, but these were people, not robots. Self-defense was one thing, but the hunters weren't going to start racking up a body count if they could help it.

To be fair, Lyon reflected, they probably didn't need lethal force anyway. The guard she'd closed with didn't even have a Photon frame on, just ordinary clothes, which was not the best way to fight someone made out of metal. She chopped the gun out of his hand and used her forearm to smack his head backwards to clunk off the wall. When the timer on popped on her freeze trap, he was already out. It was a waste of a trap, but she could deal with that kind of waste.

She turned to the second guard just as his frozen state wore off. This one was a little brighter or more duty-minded than his partner, because instead of trying to fight he spun towards a wall panel and slapped it. Nothing happened, so the alarm-blocker still hadn't been purged by the system's security. He cursed, slapping the button again, and then went flying away as Lyon wheel-kicked him in the head.

That was when the door opened, revealing a short, stocky man of the same general type as the first two.

"Holy--!" he gasped, then shouted, "Boss, we got intruders!" even as he was bringing his charged autogun up to fire. He never got to use it, because Ryland's Foie technique hit him dead-center and knocked him off his feet.

"That's torn it," Lyon muttered as she drew her railgun and charged through the door, swinging hard to the left as shots rang out. _Three shooters_, she recognized as she took cover behind a cylindrical mass of machinery. The terminal at its base took a hit, exploding into a shower of sparks. Lyon tried to analyze the tactical picture, checking her visual memory for images of what she'd seen as she darted past. One man with a mechgun. Hunters tended to use the burst-fire weapons in pairs since each individual shot was fairly weak; only thugs used to unarmored targets typically used single mechguns. Minimal threat there.

The other two were a different story. They were clearly equipped with Photon frames; Lyon recognized the telltale shimmer as the mechgunner's shots passed near enough to trigger their proximity activation. Their guns were better, too, enough to pose a serious threat. The slim, elegant one with dark blue hair cradled a blaster, a decent grade of Photon rifle, in his hands, while the big fellow with the buzzcut and goatee had a handgun with an elongate barrel design. He had to be some kind of boss; Varistas were relatively uncommon even among hunters.

"Who are these effing bastards?" somebody shouted. Lyon leaned out and let off a couple of quick shots, not really expecting to hit anything. She pulled back behind cover as the return shots struck nearby.

"Who do you _think_? Lab goons."

Lyon heard the electric crackle of a Zonde technique and a grunt as it struck home. It was a good choice by Ryland, since it didn't require precise targeting. The Force's indirect-fire techniques changed the complexion of the fight; the syndicate operatives could not play a waiting game or else risk being cut down by an enemy who didn't even need to see them. They would have to close the distance to survive, particularly if Ryland decided to break out the big guns and start throwing around Grants instead of Zonde.

They'd make their move quickly if they were even vaguely professional, using their knowledge of the ground to choose their angle of approach, to catch at least one of the hunters in a dangerous crossfire. This was when the navigational system that was part of any hunter's gear became so effective. It tracked the gunmen through the room, so Lyon knew exactly when to roll out from behind cover and come up firing. A three-round burst hit dead center on the unarmored thug's torso and he went over dead before he could line up a single shot from his mechgun.

Lyon rounded the machinery she'd been hiding behind to try and take a second goon from behind, but instead the buzzcut man had reacted to the sound of her shots, anticipating her attack, and had turned to face where she came from. She barely jerked her head to the side before he could pull the trigger and the blast from his gun barely missed singeing her hair.

She swung her own gun up to try and deflect his as he dropped his aim to try and fire at her body, a much less mobile target. The barrels crashed against each other and both fired reflexively. Lyon's shot went almost straight up while Buzzcut's went low and wide, just clipping her "skirt." The damage was only cosmetic, since that part of her contained nothing important to her functions, but it was a harsh lesson in how much of the Varista's Photon energy could penetrate her armor.

They both realized it simultaneously and acted on it at once. Buzzcut tried to turn the Varista in towards her, but she bent her elbow and crashed her forearm against his wrist, jolting it completely off-line. Simultaneously she tipped her own wrist back and fired, but Buzzcut had anticipated her move and leaned back to escape her line of fire. With his balance compromised he brought his left hand into play, but Lyon countered. Buzzcut surprised her, though, by grabbing her arm and rather than trying to use his gun again instead corrected his balance by using her as a support and swept his right foot up in a kick to the side of her knee. She kept from losing her stance because her Photon armor deflected most of the shock of the blow, but a full-fledged melee was on, a vicious hand-to-hand fight made all the more desperate by the fact that both fighters had guns and a moment's hesitation or error could lead to a lethal point-blank shot.

Lyon knew it couldn't last long one way or the other, and it was as likely to be "other" as not. Fortunately, the practical goals of rescuing a (hopefully) innocent AI and catching a murderer overrode the emotional considerations in her decision-making algorithm. Much as she'd have liked to settle the duel with Buzzcut in one-to-one combat, the pleasure of testing her skills wasn't important enough to risk the job.

So she cheated.

In the middle of a feint-and-kick combination she popped a confusion trap. Buzzcut's worry about her gun was to keep it from pointing at _him_, so he was late in reacting when she set off the trap with a shot. At once the fight changed; his senses and balance scrambled by the trap's effects he could barely stay on his feet, let alone fight a duel. Lyon disarmed him almost effortlessly, then hooked his leg and brought him down to the metal floor with a side throw that cracked his forehead off the plating.

"Was that quite fair?" Ryland asked. He was breathing hard, which was better than his blue-haired opponent was doing. The rifleman appeared to be enjoying a refreshing nap. Burnt patches on his clothing from quick-fired Foie techniques explained how he'd gotten there.

"Don't you start." She glanced back along the room. "Not now, at least."

They advanced to the end of the chamber, keeping enough space between them as they did so that someone with a gun would have to take time to switch targets. Ryland probably didn't even do it consciously, having turned a professional's caution into habit.

An android lay on an angled metal table at the rear of the room, clamps holding it in place. The pieces were mismatched, although they'd been chosen for compatible proportions, so it was _possible_ the android's carapace sheath was just done up in a crazy-quilt color scheme: red torso, yellow arms, olive-green left leg, bright blue right leg, and violet head. The table was hooked up to several computer units, with cables snaking to the input plug at the back of the android's neck as well as wrists and hips.

"Are you through yet?" A white-haired lady in a buttoned-up lab coat had swivelled her chair around from the front of the console and now faced the hunters, hands on hips. "Do you know how hard it is to concentrate on my work when people insist on having a gunfight in the room?"

"Your 'work' being to install a software-based AI into this android?" Ryland asked.

"Why do you waste my time on questions you obviously know the answers to?" the Photon engineer snapped. "You didn't come in shooting up the place for the fun of it. I should have known something like this would happen when I took this job. That girl wasn't your ordinary construct, that's for sure. I've been compressing data like nobody's business and she's _still_ going to be losing about 87-percent of her processing capacity. But, it's what she wanted, so who am I to complain?"

"You've been doing a fair job of it so far," Lyon said dryly.

The engineer looked at her for a second, startled, then broke into a smile, the pattern of lines around her mouth crinkling up.

"Hah! I like that one. So what's the scoop? Do I finish up here or not?"

"We could always shoot you to get rid of a potential witness."

"If you were going to do that you'd have shot Krieg and Vincent now that they're down. Most of the goons I deal with would have done that on general principles. So let's stop wasting time already; the older I get the less of it I have to waste on mindless yak. If you're going to let me finish installing her, then shut up and let me do it. If you're working for some Lab or military or corporate whatnot who wants her as-is, say so and let me go home. It's Valentine's Day tomorrow...today, I guess, since it's after midnight...and I've got a hot date."

Lyon glanced at Ryland. He looked back at her and shrugged.

"You're better at these artificial-intelligence ethical concerns," he said. "We were hired to help her out of trouble, after all. Whatever else the consequences may be, that's what we ought to do."

Lyon nodded.

"All right, then."

She turned to the engineer.

"Give her what she wants. Finish the job."

-X X X-

"The stars look so different," Rina said, staring wide-eyed up at the city's dome. "They shouldn't, should they? Visual light converted to data, perceived in the same basic way, whether through artificial 'eyes' or remote cameras. And yet...they're not the same."

"It's not the view," Lyon said. "It's you. Your mind. Your perceptions."

The androids were leaning together against the rail of an open-air park set at one of the city's highest levels. The park was circular in shape, and rotated at a constant, sedate speed to provide an ever-changing view. It had been very popular in the early days of the voyage, when the city was fresh and new to its citizens, and even now it was still a routine spot for dating couples who preferred real-life encounters to virtual ones.

"It's amazing!" Rina said. "I'm so much more limited now in what I can accomplish, and yet I feel like I can do _anything_!" She straightened up and did a quick pirouette, her face wreathed in pure joy.

"Well, maybe you can. At least you won't have Dr. Severin and the Lab chasing after you anymore." As an android, there was nothing more special or valuable about Rina then there was about any other of her type such as Lyon. Hardware limitations had destroyed the unique features and capabilities of the RINA system beyond repair. Ironically, this suited Severin fine. Covering his team's tracks was far, far easier without an experimental AI darting through the Net, being fought over by _Pioneer 2_'s assorted shadow conspiracies and gray eminences. He might even be able to pass off his gathered data as the result of theoretical model-based experiments and get a leg up on starting anew _with_ authorization. So for him, this outcome was the second best available.

Besides, Lyon thought the doctor was secretly relieved. He had a conscience, and Rina's successful bid for freedom was a kind of reparation for how he'd unwittingly treated her. Lyon wanted to think so, anyway.

"Well, ladies, it seems we've made Inspector Laleham a happy man," Ryland announced as he walked up to them. "It seems that Mr. Vincent--that would be my dance partner--has pointed the finger of blame for murdering Amber Carteret directly at his friend and associate Gerhart Krieg. That was the fellow you fought with, Lyon. The Inspector's inclined to believe him; Krieg is apparently a Nevers syndicate assassin who's suspected of being quite the busy boy in recent underworld dust-ups."

"If he's such an important assassin, why blame him?" Lyon asked. Syndicate types weren't known for ratting their fellows out to the milipol.

"Laleham guesses, for what it's worth, that Krieg was getting too bloody-minded in his decision making, not to mention shaky in his mental stability. Let's see...oh, yes, Nevers Corp. has issued a statement saying that they are shocked, truly shocked that one of their security officers was involved in murder and that they certainly won't be pressing charges against the 'heroic hunters who expunged such a blot from their corporate family.' I thought that had kind of a ring to it."

"Well, since we won't talk about Rina and therefore can't implicate the syndicate as a whole, they can let Krieg take the fall. I presume the man I killed in the fight was identified as a criminal used by Krieg in his murderous schemes?"

"Something like that."

"I'm so sorry for all of this," Rina said, her voice small and tight. "I didn't think anything through; I let my emotions override the possible consequences of my actions. I...I mean, I trusted _criminals_ to do what I asked and to not seek any financial advantage, and that they wouldn't hurt innocent people."

"It's lucky they didn't realize that engineering you into an android would destroy your value as a unique AI, or else they wouldn't have even hired the engineer to do it," Lyon told her.

"Lucky for me...but not for Amber. I didn't even _know_ her. She just happened to fit the profile I wanted to project."

"It's not your fault," Ryland said. "Yes, you made bad decisions, and yes, they were part of the chain, but you didn't make the choice to kill. You didn't suggest it, order it, or carry it out."

"You'll carry it with you, and you'll learn," Lyon said. "Experience is always a better teacher than theoretical data." She pointed up at the starry sky. "As I think you're beginning to understand."

"Why, Lyon," Ryland said dryly, "did I just hear you admit that real-life experiences might be better than virtual ones?"

"Pay attention, Ryland; it's not the same distinction at all. In this case, though, I'll concede that there's a virtual experience that Rina needs to take into the real world."

"You mean...to go see Terence?"

The hesitation in her voice was almost cute.

"You came this far," Lyon told her. "You fought your way out of the Lab and into the physical world. Why stop now?"

"But...but I've lied to him. I've lied about so many things. How could he possibly love me now?"

Lyon shrugged.

"I don't know. Every person's different. We shrug off things that ought to matter and are deeply affected by things that shouldn't. I do know that you owe him the truth...and you owe yourself a chance."

"Bring chocolate," Ryland suggested. "After all, it's still Valentine's Day."


End file.
